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*^He kissed the laughing children as they clung to himd^ 
“The Happiest Time,” page 114. 


Hittle jStorie© of 
CDarrieb Xtife 

»p 

fflar? 0tetoart Outtins 


New York 

Doubleday, Page & Company 
Mcmix 


Copyright, 1902, by 

McClure, Phillips & Co, 


Copyright, 1896, by 
S. S. McClure Co. 
Copyright, 1899, by 
S. S. McClure Co. 
Copyright, 1902, by 
S. S. McClure Co. 



Seventh Impression. 


. Contents 


PAGE 


Their Second Marriage 

. I 

A Good Dinner » 

23 

The Strength of Ten 

• 45 

In the Reign of Quintilia 

73 

The Happiest Time 

• 93 

In the Married Quarters 

115 

MrSo Atwood’s Outer Raiment . 

* 139 

Fairy Gold . . . . 

159 

A Matrimonial Episode . 

. 181 

Not a Sad Story , 

199 

Wings 0 • . 

. 225 











Their Second Marriage 



Their Second Marriage 


E 


ENRY, do you know what day 
Thursday will be?’’ 

‘"Thursday? The twenty-first/’ 

“Yes, and what will the twenty-first be?'’ 

“Thursday." 

“Oh, Henry !" Pretty Mrs. Waring looked 
tragically across the breakfast-table at her hus- 
band, or rather at the newspaper that screened 
him completely from her view. “Do put down 
that paper for a moment. I never get a chance 
to speak to you any more in the morning, and 
I have to spend the whole day alone. Do you 
really mean to say that you don't know what 
the twenty-first is?" 

“The twenty-first?" Mr. Waring met his 
wife's gaze blankly as he hurriedly swallowed 
his coffee, and then furtively observed the 
hands of the watch that lay open on the table 
before him. “What do you mean, Doll? Say 
it quickly, for I've got to go." 

“Henry, have you forgotten that it is the an- 
niversary of our wedding?" 

“Oh — oh !" said Mr. Waring, a light dawn- 
ing on him, and a suspicious note of relief per- 
ceptible in his voice. He rose from his chair 
as he spoke. “Forgotten that ? Why, of course 
[3] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


not ; the day I was married to the sweetest girl 
in the world! How lovely you did look, to be 
sure, and what a lucky fellow I was to get you ! 
Can you just help me on with my overcoat, 
dear? The lining of this sleeve — Yes, I 
know you haven't had time to mend it yet. 
Now, Doll, I would like to stand here and kiss 
you all day, but the train is whistling across the 
bridge. By, by, dear; take good care of your- 
self and the babies!" 

His wife watched him fondly as he walked 
down the path to the gate, strong, alert, and 
masculine, and waved her hand as he looked 
back and took off his hat to her with a smile 
before joining another man hurrying for the 
train. She could see him almost visibly shut 
out the little cottage from his mind as he 
turned away from it, and set his shoulders 
squarely, as if to brace himself for entering the 
strenuous whirl of business life that makes up 
the larger, waking half of a man's life, and in 
which wife and children have but a sub-exist- 
ence. But this morning Mrs. Waring did not 
feel the chill depression that sometimes stole 
over her as she saw him disappear; her mind 
was too occupied with his words, which, few 
and perfunctory as they might sound to the un- 
initiated, carried deepest meaning to her ears. 
Her ardent mind conjured up the picture of the 
girl in bridal attire who had stood beside her 
[4] 


Their Second Marriage 

lover on their marriage-day, and credited him 
with the same wealth of imagining and all the 
tender sentiment connected with it. She fell 
into a delightful dream of the romantic past, 
from which she was only aroused by the patter 
of little feet above and the reminder that she 
was needed in the nursery. 

Mrs. Waring had, unknown to her husband, 
set her mind for some months past on a cele- 
bration of her wedding anniversary, the ob- 
servance of which had lapsed, for one reason 
or another, for a couple of years; but she had 
said to herself firmly that Henry must propose 
it, and not leave it all to her. If she had to 
plan it out as she had their moving into the 
'ountry, or their trip to the seashore last sum- 
mer, or the Christmas party for the babies — 
nay, if she even had to suggest it to him, it 
would be valueless to her. If he did not love 
her enough, if he did not have her happiness 
enough at heart to think of pleasing her with- 
out being reminded of it — why, she would have 
no celebration. It was entirely against her 
resolution that she had spoken of it this morn- 
ing, but she knew in her soul that he never 
would remember if she did not, and she could 
only think that, the date once recalled, the rest 
must follow. 

She herself thought of nothing else all day. 
She told little Henry all about mamma’s pretty 
[ 5 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


wedding ^‘once upon a time/' when mamma 
wore a beautiful white dress with a long white 
veil, and walked up the aisle in church when 
the organ played, and the chancel was full of 
roses and palms; and although the child only 
asked innocently if there were any bears or 
lions there, her small nurse-maid, Beesy, was 
deeply though respectfully interested, and Mrs. 
Waring could not help being secretly conscious 
that, while apparently engaged with her infant 
audience, she was in reality playing to the gal- 
lery. She even got out her wedding jewels to 
hang around baby Marjorie's neck, to provoke 
Beesy' s awestricken admiration. 

It would have taken close study of the influ- 
ences of the past year to determine why this 
particular wedding anniversary should have as- 
sumed such prominence in young Mrs. War- 
ing's mind. Both she and her husband had 
been surprised to find that, in face of all precon- 
ceived opinions, they had not settled down into 
the cool, platonic, friendship held up to them 
as the ultimate good of all wedded pairs, but 
were still honestly and sincerely in love with 
each other. Yet, in spite of this fact, there 
had lately been a certain strain. After all the 
first things are over — the first year, which is 
seldom the crucial one in spite of its conven- 
tional aspect in that light; after the first boy, 
and the first girl, and the first venture at house* 
[ 6 ] 


Their Second Marriage 

keeping in the suburbs — there comes a long 
course of secondary living that tugs with its 
chain at character and sometimes pulls it sharp- 
ly from its stanchions. 

Mrs. Waring greeted her husband that night 
with a countenance of soulful meaning, and 
eyes that were uplifted to his in a fervid solem- 
nity that ought to have warned any man of 
peril ahead. She had a delightful sensation 
that their most comrponplace utterances were 
fraught with repressed feeling, and when he 
finally said to her, after dinner, as they sat by 
the little wood-fire together, “Fve a surprise 
for you, Doll,’’ her heart gave a joyous bound, 
and she felt how truly he had justified her 
thought of him. 

‘‘What is it, Henry?” 

“Mother and Aunt Eliza and Mary Apple- 
ton and Nan are coming here to lunch day 
after to-morrow — Thursday. Of course I said 
you’d be delighted. It’s all right, isn’t it?” 

“Coming on Thursday T 

“Yes. That isn’t a washing day or a clean- 
ing day, is it?” 

“No.” 

Mr. Waring looked confounded. 

“You’ve spoken so many times of their not 
coming out in the whole year we’ve lived here, 
I thought you’d be glad, Doll.” 

“Henry, why do you never call me Ethel 
[7l 


Little Stories of Married Life 


any more? You used to say it was the most 
beautiful name in the world, and now you seem 
to forget that I have any name. Oh, if you 
knew how sick I get of always being called 
Doll! Such a horrid, common-sounding 
thing r 

^Why, Doll— 

‘‘There it is again 

“Ethel, my dear girl, don’t cry. If I had 
had the dimmest idea — I seem always fated 
to do the wrong thing lately. Why can’t you 
tell me sometimes what you’re driving at? If 
you don’t want my mother and the girls, just 
say so. I can send them word to-morrow, 
and—” 

“If you doT Mrs. Waring stood up trag- 
ically with one hand on her husband’s shoulder. 
“I wouldn’t have such a thing happen for 
worlds.” She gave a little gasp of horror at 
the thought. “But, oh, Henry, you nearly kill 
me sometimes! No, if you don’t know why 
this time, I shall not tell you again.” She 
leaned her head against her husband as if ex- 
hausted, and submitted to be drawn down be- 
side him once more. “You never think of me 
any more.” 

“But I do think of you, sweetheart.” He 
patted her head persuasively. “Lots of times, 
when you don’t know it. If you’d only tell me 
what you want, dear. I’m such a bad guesser. 

[ 8 ] 


Their Second Marriage 


And I know you really do wish to see my moth- 
er and show her the children/’ 

''It’s the fourth time she has sent word that 
she was coming,” said his wife pensively. She 
was already forecasting the plan of action to 
be^pursued in making ready for the expected 
guests. 

When you are a young housekeeper with in- 
fants and only a nurse-maid besides the cook, 
a day’s company means the revolutionizing of 
the entire domestic machinery. In the city peo- 
ple carelessly come and go, and the household 
of the entertainer is put to no special prepara- 
tion for them, but it is an unwritten law in the 
country that before the advent of the seldom 
guest "to spend the day” the entire domicile 
must be swept and garnished from top to 
bottom. 

As Ethel Waring rubbed and polished and 
dusted she could but remember that she had 
gone through the process of cleaning three 
times before for Henry’s mother, who had al- 
ways hitherto disappointed her. She prided 
herself on being really fond of her mother-in- 
law, and his sister Nan had been her particular 
friend, but Aunt Eliza and Mary Appleton were 
the kind of people — well, the kind of people 
that belonged to her husband’s family, and they 
always saw everything around the house. She 
cleaned now for the. fourth time magnanimous- 
[9] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


ly. Since she had moved into the country, and 
went to and from the city two or three times a 
week, it had seemed odd to have her friends 
and relatives look upon the half-hour’s jour- 
ney in train and ferry-boat as a mighty under- 
taking, to be planned for weeks ahead; and al- 
though she had been in her cottage over a year, 
she had not yet become used to this point of 
view, and still expected people to come after 
they had promised to. 

There was something grimly sacrificial in 
her preparations now that upheld her in her 
disappointment; her husband could not remem- 
ber her pleasure, but she was working her fin- 
gers off for his people. Yes, she had nothing 
to look forward to but neglect — and the worst 
of it was that he would not even know that he 
was neglecting her. 

Perhaps, however, he did remember after 
all. She watched every word and gesture of 
his up to the very morning of their anniversary. 
He was so happy and merry and affectionate in 
his efforts to win her to smiles that she could 
hardly withstand the infectiousness of it. But 
she felt after his cheerful good-by as if the 
tragedy of her future years had begun. 

There was, indeed, no time for the luxury of 
quiet wretchedness. The two children had to 
be bathed and put to bed for the morning nap, 
which both she and Beesy prayed might be a 

t 10 ] 


Their Second Marriage 


long one, so that the last clearing up might be 
done, and the table set, and the salad-dressing 
made, and the cream whipped for the jelly, and 
she herself dressed and in the drawing-room 
before twelve o'clock. 

There was the usual panic when the butcher 
was late with the chickens, and the discovery 
was made that the green grocer had not brought 
what was ordered, and the usual hurried send-r 
ing forth of Beesy to the village at the last mo- 
ment for the missing lettuce, only to be told 
that ''there was none in town this day" — a fact 
that smites the suburban housekeeper like a 
blow. But finally everything was ready, the 
table set to perfection, the drawing-room cur- 
tains drawn at their most effective angle, the 
logs burning on the andirons, the chairs set 
most cozily, and the vase of jonquils with their 
long, green stalks showing through the clear 
glass, giving a lovely brightness to the room in 
their hint of approaching spring. The babies, 
sweet and fresh, in the whitest of frocks, and 
hair curled in little damp rings, ran up and 
down and prattled beside the charmingly 
dressed, pretty mother, who sat with her em- 
broidery in hand and who could not help feel- 
ing somewhat of a glow of satisfaction through 
her sadness. But after Harry had peeped out 
from the curtains some twenty times to see if 
grandmamma was coming, and little Marjorie 
[II] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


had fallen down and raised a large bump on her 
forehead, and the one-o’clock train had come 
in, there was a certain change in the situation. 
The cook sent up word should she put on the 
oysters, and Mrs. Waring answered no, to wait 
until the next train, although that did not ar- 
rive until two o’clock. She pretended that her 
guests had missed the earlier train, but in her 
soul she felt the cold chill of certainty that they 
would not come. 

i As she sat eating her luncheon afterward in 
solitary state, and wishing that she knew any 
of her neighbors well enough to ask them to 
join her, she received a belated telegram from 
her husband : ‘'Nan says party postponed; Aunt 
Eliza has headache.” She read it, and cast it 
from her scornfully. 

And this was her wedding-day, passed in un- 
necessary work, futile preparation for people 
who didn’t care a scrap for her ! Oh, if she had 
only been going in town that afternoon, as she 
had dreamed of doing, to have a little dinner 
with Henry at the Waldorf, or Sherry’s, or the 
St. Denis even — and go to a play afterward — 
she didn’t care where — and have just their own 
little happy foolish time over it all ! She had 
hardly been anywhere since little Marjorie 
was born. 

She was surprised to have a caller in the 
afternoon, a Mrs. Livermore. The visitor was 
[ 12 ] 


Their Second Marriage 

a large, stout woman with very blond hair, who 
lived on the opposite corner. She was dressed 
in a magnificently florid style, and sat in the 
little drawing-room a large mass of purple cloth 
and fur and gleaming jet spangles, surmounted 
by curving plumes, that quite dwarfed Mrs. 
Waring’ s slender elegance. She apologized 
profusely for not having called before, as ill- 
ness had prevented her doing so, and sailed at 
once smoothly off into a sea of medical terms, 
giving such an intimate and minute account 
of the many diseases that had ravaged her that 
poor Mrs. Waring paled. The one bright spot 
in her existence seemed to have been her hus- 
band, whom she described as the most untiring 
of nurses. 

^T really didn’t know whether Fd find you 
at home this afternoon or not,” she said. 
''Your nurse-girl, Beesy, told my cook that 
this was the anniversary of your wedding. 
Willie and I always used to go off somewhere 
for a little treat, but since Fve been such an 
invalid Fve had to stay at home. But he 
never forgets. What do you think, Mrs. War- 
ing, every Saturday since our marriage, four- 
teen years ago, he has brought me home a box 
of flowers! He always says, ‘Here are your 
roses. Baby’ — that’s his pet name for me. I 
don’t know what Fd do if Willie wasn’t so 
attentive.” 


[13] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


‘‘Indeed/’ said Mrs. Waring. 

On her return to the nursery she took oc- 
casion to reprove Beesy for gossiping. Beesy 
was loud in extenuation. In a cottage one is 
thrown in rather close companionship with 
one’s nurse-maid. 

“Ah, I never said but two words to Ellen; 
but Mrs. Livermore — there’s nothing she does- 
n’t find out. And the way she and Mr. Liver- 
more quar’ls !” 

“Why, she says he is so devoted to her,” 
said Mrs. Waring incautiously. “He brings 
her flowers every week.” She sighed as she 
thought of the husband who did not bring them 
once a year. ^ 

“Him! Ah, ma’am, Ellen says they fights 
like cat and dog, and ’twas only a week ago 
a-Monday the plates was flyin’ that thick in 
the dinin’-room, Ellen she dassent put her head 
in at the door to take away the meat. Ellen 
says ’twould have curdled y’r blood to hear ’em. 
The neighbors have complained of ’em in the 
court. He drinks terrible !” 

“You must not tell me these things, Beesy,” 
said Mrs. Waring with dignity. “I do not 
wish to hear them. Come, Marjorie, sweetest, 
play pat-a-cake with mamma — this way, baby 
darling. Oh, Beesy, there’s the bell again !” 

This time it was a neighbor whom Mrs. 
Waring had met before and rather liked, a gen- 
[14] 


Their Second Marriage 


tie, faded, sympathetic woman who had ad- 
mired the children. Mrs. Waring , confided 
some of the household perplexities to her, and 
they talked of the village markets and com- 
pared notes on prices, gradually reaching even 
more personal ground. Mrs. Waring finally 
divulged the fact that this was the anniver- 
sary of her wedding, and received her guest’s 
congratulations. 

“I had hoped to have celebrated the day in 
town,” she added impulsively, ‘'but Mr. War- 
ing’s business arrangements have prevented.” 

“It must be a real disappointment to you,” 
commented her visitor feelingly. “I often 
think how lonely you must be, knowing so few 
people. A man so seldom realizes what a wom- 
an's life is! He goes off into the busy world 
every morning, little thinking of all she must 
endure throughout the day. I often watch you 
look after your husband when he has left you 
in the morning; you look so longingly, dear. I 
said to Mr. Morris just the other day, ‘I do 
wish Mr. Waring would look back just once 
at that szveet young wife of his.’ Mr. Morris 
always turns at the corner and waves his hand 
to me; perhaps you’ve seen him — dear fellow!” 

Mrs. Waring cooled suddenly toward this 
too sympathetic visitor, who soon left, but the 
words had left a secret sting. Her voice had 
a tragic sound when she told Beesy that she 
[15] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


would order her meat henceforth from Ein- 
stein, as Mrs. Morris said that his prices were 
lower than O’Reilly's. 

“Mrs. Morris, ma’am !” caroled Beesy. “Ah, 
ma’am, you wouldn’t be after eatin’ the kind 
of stuf¥ she does. It’s not a roast of beef that 
does be going in at that house from one week’s 
end to another — nothin’ but little weenty scraps 
that wouldn’t keep a dog alive. Mr. Morris, 
poor man, he’s that thin and wake. Oh, ’tis 
she has all the money, and she keeps him that 
close ! Ellen says ’tis only a quart of milk goes 
to them for five days, and nobbut one shovelful 
of coal allowed to be put on the furnace at a 
time, and him with the cough that’s tearing the 
heart out of him ! Ellen says — ” 

“That will do, Beesy,” said Mrs. Waring 
severely. The gossip of servants, the trivial 
conversation and fulsome pity of vulgar neigh- 
bors, was this all that was left to her ? 

She went downstairs again, and sat in the 
drawing-room, inside of the window curtains, 
and wept. The gathering dusk seemed to pre- 
figure the gloom that was to encompass her 
future years. If people only wouldn’t pity her 
she might be able to live; the children would 
love her at any rate. Six years ago how happy 
she was, how dear his eyes looked when he 
gave her that first married kiss! She could 
smell even now the fragrance of the bride roses 
[16 5 


Their Second Marriage 


that she had held. She heard the patter of the 
children’s feet overhead, and tried to wipe 
away the blinding tears. 

A quick footstep on the walk outside star- 
tled her, and the gate slammed to with a loud 
noise. Could it be possible? Her husband 
was running up the piazza steps with some- 
thing white in his hand — an enormous bunch 
of white roses. Another moment and he was 
by her side, beaming down at her. Oh, how 
handsome he was ! 

‘‘How soon can you get on your things, Doll ? 
I’ve tickets for the opera to-night — ‘Romeo and 
Juliet’ — Emma Eames and Jean de Reszke — 
does that suit you?” 

“Oh, Henry!” 

“I’ve brought some flowers, and we’ll make 
a lark of it. I’ve ordered a cab from the station 
to be here in twenty minutes, and we’ll have to 
dress and get a bite, too, if we can. I wanted 
to come out earlier, but I wasn’t certain about 
the tickets until the last moment. We’ll have a 
little supper after the opera, and take the one- 
ten out. What do you say to that?” 

“Oh, Henry ! I thought you had forgotten, 
I thought — ” But there was no time to talk. 

Could she ever forget that delightful, bewil- 
dering, hurried twenty minutes? She spent 
five of them in trimming over a hat, to the mas- 
culine creature’s amazement, her deft fingers 
[17] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


pulling off bows and feathers and sticking them 
on again with lightning rapidity. She ate a 
sandwich in the intervals of dressing and giv- 
ing directions to Beesy about the babies. 

When they finally whirled off in the stuffy 
little cab to the railway station they were like a 
couple of children in their happy abandonment 
to the expected pleasure. 

The opera — had they ever gone to any opera 
before ? How inconceivably beautiful and bril- 
liant the house, the lights, the gay assemblage 
to the erstwhile dwellers of the suburbs! To- 
gether they scanned the emblazoned women in 
the boxes, and pointed out to each other those 
whom they recognized. And when Gounod’s 
delicious music stole into their hearts, and Mrs. 
Waring sat with her bride roses in one hand, 
and the other tucked secretly into Henry’s, un- 
der cover of her wrap, was ever any woman 
happier? Had ever any girl a lover more de- 
voted or more bubbling over with fun ? Romeo 
and Juliet — what were they to a real married 
couple of to-day? Then the supper afterward 
with the gay throng at the Waldorf — the reck- 
less disregard of the midnight train — could 
there be dizzier heights of revelry ? 

It was when they stood outside on the ferry- 
boat coming home that Mrs. Waring spoke at 
last the thought that had lain nearest her heart 
all the evening. They were out alone in front, 

[i8] 


Their Second Marriage 

the cold night wind blew refreshingly, the dark 
water plashed around them, and across its black 
expanse the colored lights gleamed faintly from 
the New Jersey shore. Mrs. Waring leaned a 
little closer to her husband as they stood there 
in the night and the darkness. 

“Dear,’’ she murmured, “I can’t tell you how 
lovely the evening has been; but you know 
what has made it so to me, that has been mak- 
ing me so very happy ? The opera and the sup- 
per would have been nothing without it. Dar- 
ling, it’s because you thought of it all yourself.” 

A sudden tension in the arm on which she 
leaned startled Mrs. Waring. She bent for- 
ward to look up into her husband’s face, with 
a swift suspicion. 

“Henry?” 

“Well, Doll.” 

''Didn't you think of it, yourself?” 

“Nobody could have enjoyed our little fun 
together more than I have, you know that, 
Doll; and nobody could want to make you any 
happier than I do. What’s the use of picking 
the whole thing to pieces now and spoiling it 
all?” 

“Henry Waring, you haven’t answered me. 
Did you remember that this was our wedding- 
day, or did you not ? Who was it told you to 
take me out to-night?” 

“If you will not tell me these things your- 
[19] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


self, Ethel — it’s mean of you, dear; it puts me 
at a disadvantage when you remember and I 
don’t. Heaven knows that I oughtn’t to for- 
get anything that would give pleasure to you — 
that’s true; but I’m not mean on purpose, and 
you are. You know — But don’t let’s quarrel 
to-night.” 

“Quarrel!” Mrs. Waring lifted her head 
indignantly. “As if I wanted to quarrel! Who 
was it told you, Henry ?” 

“Well, Ethel, if you must know. Nan was 
in the office to-day to say they couldn’t come, 
and she — ” 

“Nan — your sister Nan!” 

Like a flash Mrs. Waring saw it all. She 
knew Nan’s impetuous, whole-souled way; 
but — One of Henry’s family! Life could 
have no further joy for her. 

She looked at him furtively as he stood be- 
side her gazing ruefully out across the water. 
Were they quarreling — would they get to 
throwing plates after a while? His attitude 
was ludicrously dejected. In spite of herself 
and the tears that had been ready to well up in 
her eyes the moment before, a sudden sense of 
the absurdity of it all came over her, and she 
broke into a refreshingly unexpected peal of 
laughter. Her husband stared, and then 
laughed, too, in delighted relief. “Ah,” she 
murmured, with her ‘ cheek against his coat 
[20] 


Their Second Marriage 

sleeve, ‘‘I suppose Til just have to love you as 
you are V 

‘‘If you only would, dear,’' he assented 
humbly. 

The lights on the New Jersey shore shone 
brighter and brighter now, yellow and red and 
green, casting their reflection on the black lap- 
ping water below. The boat was nearing the 
dock. All unbidden with the last words had 
come a deep joy, a thrill from heart to heart, 
wonderful in its illuminating power. The 
warm silence that followed was an instant ben- 
ediction to unrecorded vows. 

The chains clanked in the dock. As they 
stepped across the gangplank toward the dark, 
waiting lines of cars beyond, he pressed her 
hand in his as he bent over her, and whispered 
in tender playfulness, “Shall we take the train 
for Washington or Philadelphia ?” 



A Good Dinner 


r23j 


« 



A Good Dinner 


rtOHE butcher, ma'am/’ 

■ ^ Mrs. Chauncey Callender put 
down her half-eaten rhuffin with a 
gesture of despair, as she looked at the tidy, 
white-capped maid before her. 

''Why does he always come at breakfast 
time? As if it is possible to know then what 
one is going to want for the day ! I’m sure I 
can’t think of a thing! Chauncey, you might 
help me. I get so tired planning the meals, and 
it’s very hard to order for a small family. 
What would you like for dinner to-night?” 

"Roast peacock,” said Mr. Callender. 

"Would you like a beefsteak?” His wife 
patiently ignored the last remark, which as a 
stock answer to a stock question had even 
ceased to irritate her. 

"I shouldn’t mind having it.” 

"'Shouldn’t mind having it!’ I’m asking 
you if you want it.” 

"I want anything that you do.” 

"Oh, Chauncey ! You’ll drive me crazy-mad 
some day. I wish you’d express a preference; 
it would make it so much easier for me. Would 
you like chicken? I know that Cadmus has 
poultry on Wednesday.” 

[25] 


Little Stories of JVlariied Life 

Mr. Callender’s expression became suddenly 
tinged with melancholy. Although he was 
now metropolitan in appearance, manner, and 
habit, his early existence had been spent upon a 
farm, where the killing and eating-up of chick- 
ens at certain periods of the year was an eco- 
nomic process, compulsory upon the household. 
A momentary sickness and distaste of life 
seemed evolved from the recollection as he 
answered, 

‘'I don’t seem to care much for chicken.” 

‘‘You never do, and I am so fond of it. Well, 
chops then. Would you like breaded chops?” 

“We have those almost every night, don’t 
we?” returned Mr. Callender briskly, under 
the impression that he was being agreeable. 
“When in doubt, have chops. Oh, yes, I like 
them well enough, when they’re not raw in 
the middle, like the last. But get what you 
want yourself, Cynthia, it really doesn’t make 
any difference to me.” 

“That’s so like you! Why don’t you tell 
me at the time when things are wrong, instead 
of coming out with it like this, afterwards? 
Why didn’t you say the chops were raw? 
Mine were all right.” She regarded him with 
affectionate exasperation, her wrath tempered 
by a guilty consciousness that there had been 
undue sameness in the meals lately. “If I were 
like some wives — ” 


[26] 


A Good Dinner 


'The butcher, ma’am — he’s waiting,” inter- 
posed the maid apologetically. 

"Tell him I’ll come down to the village my- 
self and give the order,” said Mrs. Callender 
with dignity. "I’ll surprise you with a really 
good dinner to-night, something out of the 
ordinary. We’ll have a dinner party for 
ourselves.” 

"All right,” said Mr. Callender with amiable 
alacrity, feeling relieved of all individual re- 
sponsibility. "Let’s, as the children say. I’ll 
bring out a bottle of wine and som^ flowers 
for you, to carry out the idea,” he added, with 
a magnificent cooperation in her plans that 
would have made up for all his previous short- 
comings if he had not suddenly remarked as 
he was going out of the door, 

"By the way, we may have company to- 
night, but I’m not sure. I nearly forgot to 
mention it.” 

"Chaunce}^ !” 

"A couple of Englishmen, over here to inter- 
view the firm; nice fellows, you’d like ’em. 
They may give us a big order if things are sat- 
isfactory, and we treat ’em right.” 
^^Chaunceyr 

But he was gone for his train. Mrs. Cal- 
lender looked horrified, and then laughed. It 
was a way she had. His unexpectedness was 
always a secret delight to her, although she out- 
[27] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


wardly bemoaned it; it gave her a gambler’s 
interest in existence, and also a pleasing sense 
of masculine masterfulness. She was wont to 
thank Heaven that she was married to a man. 

At no time would Mrs. Callender have been 
averse to the society of two nice men for din- 
ner. She decided at once to expect them per- 
manently, and accordingly took her cookery 
books in for consultation with the kitchen di- 
vinity, an elderly competent woman, newly in- 
stalled, whose look of aggrieved patience had 
been gained from a peripatetic experience of 
young and erratic housewives. 

, This being swooped a pile of dish-towels off 
in one arm from the back of a chair as Mrs. 
Callender drew it forward, swooped a cluster 
of dishes from the table, and with still another 
swoop wiped the white oil-cloth cover clean 
enough for the books to be deposited on it. 
She then stood, her hands in front of her, rig- 
idly attentive to the words of fate. 

There was, however, an innate joyousness 
about young Mrs. Callender which bubbled 
forth at all times and in all places, carrying pre- 
conceived opinions with it. The countenance 
of the cook insensibly relaxed as Mrs. Callender 
beamingly said, 

‘T’m going to have a good dinner to-night, 
Catherine, and I want you to help me.” 

‘‘Yes, ma’am — for how many?” 

[28] 


A Good Dinner 


“Only four. Tve decided on some of the 
things I want. You know how to make cream 
of celery soup?’’ 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“And boiled salmon with white sauce — you 
made the last very nicely; and cucumbers 
dressed with oil and vinegar — ” 

“You’ll have to order the oil, ma’am, as 
we’re just out of it.” 

“Yes, I will; of course, we’ll need it for the 
mayonnaise also. I’ll have tomato salad, and I 
wish you would make some cheese wafers to go 
with it like those we had when you came last 
week. They were awfully good. And I want 
just a few rhubarb tarts and a frozen chocolate 
pudding for dessert — here’s the receipt for that 
— with whipped cream. And you might make 
a small cake of any kind that’s easy, Catherine.” 

“What kind of meat is it to be, ma’am?” 

“Spring lamb,” said Mrs. Callender with all 
the solemnity which such a resolution demand- 
ed. To buy real spring lamb in the suburbs in 
early April puts one on a level with a moneyed 
aristocracy. “Spring lamb with mint sauce and 
fresh peas and new potatoes, if I can get them,” 
she added reverently as a saving clause. She 
blessed her lucky stars that it was not a Friday, 
when, as every suburban dweller knows, there 
are only a few wilted strands of green to be 
seen in the vegetable bins, and nothing but cold 
[2g] 


Little Stories or Married Life 


round potatoes and onions and turnips are un- 
temptingly offered for sale. 

‘'And oh, Catherine,’’ concluded Mrs. Cal- 
lender, “we’ll have coffee, of course ; and I wish 
you’d make some of those lovely little rolls of 
yours — that is, if you have time,” she gener- 
ously conceded. 

“I’ll put the bit of ironing I have on hand 
away until to-morrow,” said Catherine with 
the resignation of necessity. “And you’ll make 
out a list, ma’am, if you please, of the things 
we do be needing. I’d have to get at the cake 
and the rolls this morning. There’s not a thing 
in the house to-day to start on. We’ve no eggs, 
nor cheese, nor cream, nor chocolate, and not 
enough butter, and no rock salt for the freez- 
ing, and there’s no fruit either, if you want 
that.” 

“Oh, yes, certainly! It’s well that you re- 
minded me.” Mrs. Callender beamed anew 
upon her help. “I’m going out to-day to lunch- 
eon, so you and Nelly will have all the time 
there is. I’ll go and see about the ordering at 
once as soon as I have given her directions 
about the table. I want everything to look as 
pretty as possible. Mr. Callender is going to 
bring me some lovely flowers for the center of 
it,” she concluded with a little flourish. 

In the little rounds of a suburban town any 
incident is an event. Mrs. Callender felt that 
[30] 


A Good Dinner 


the day had becon»e one of real importance. 
She let her fancy play around the two English- 
men and her good dinner and her own toilet 
until she was in a very pleasurable state of ex- 
citement. And to be going out to luncheon 
besides! The latter, however, was not a real 
function, but only the usual concomitant of a 
French reading which she held every week with 
a friend — still, it was quite like having two 
invitations in one day. 

It happened that another friend stopped in 
casually that morning to see Mrs. Callender, 
on her way home from marketing, and from 
her she gained the pleasing knowledge that 
all the viands on which she had set her reck- 
less fancy were really to be had that day — 
even to the fresh peas, whose pods might al- 
most have contained small balls of gold, so 
stupendous was the price asked for them. But 
when she finally went upstairs to dress she 
found, to her consternation, that it was already 
half-past eleven, and not a thing ordered yet ! 

Every moment now was precious. She con- 
centrated all her attention, and sitting down 
by her desk took up a sheet of blue paper and 
wrote down rapidly on it a list of all her 
wants — one for the grocer, and one for the 
butcher. Then Fortune favoring her with the 
sight of little Jack Rand across the street, on 


Little Stories of Married Life 


his bicycle, she called him over and confided 
the list to his care. 

‘'And be sure that they both read the order 
carefully,’’ she said. “Take it on to Cadmus 
when O’Reilly is through with it. You will not 
need to tell them anything except that they are 
to send the things at once'' 

“Yes,” said Jacky, departing with swift- 
revolving red legs. As she saw the blue paper 
in his hands a strange reluctance seemed to 
hover over her, she couldn’t tell why, as if it 
were somehow wrong to write lists on blue pa- 
per. Perhaps it was extravagant. There was 
a load ofif her mind when Jack returned to af- 
firm the faithful performance of his errand, be- 
fore she started out for the luncheon. “ ‘They 
had all the things and they’ll send them right 
up, they promised,' " She repeated his words 
with a glow of satisfaction. 

There was no French after luncheon that 
day. Her friend had tickets for the private 
view of some pictures in town and persuaded 
Mrs. Callender to accompany her, under the 
pledge of taking an early train back. As a 
matter of fact, the six o’clock bells were ring- 
ing before Mrs. Callender had started to walk 
home from the station, feeling thoroughly 
guilty as she thought of her long defection 
from the affairs of the household on such a day, 
though it was quite likely that Chauncey’s 
[32] 


A Good Dinner 


friends would not come. The blue paper re- 
turned to her mind, unpleasantly, mysteriously. 

She hastened into the kitchen, to be confront- 
ed by a scene of spotless order, a brilliant fire in 
the range shedding a red glow over the hearth, 
and the white-aproned cook sitting in front 
of it with her hands folded and a stony glare 
in her eyes. 

'‘How is the dinner getting on?'' asked Mrs. 
Callender nervously. 

“There ain't no dinner," said the cook. 

“No dinner! What do you mean, Cath- 
erine?'’ 

“Not the sign of a thing has come this whole 
blessed day, ma'am; and me a-waitin' here with 
my ironin' half done, in the middle of the week. 
Not an egg nor a potato is there in the house, 
even." 

Mrs. Callender stopped, confounded. The 
shops were all closed at that hour. 

“Why, I saw Jack Rand myself, after he 
had given the order !" she exclaimed, and then 
— she knew : like lightning her association with 
the sheet of blue writing-paper was revealed 
to her; on the other side of it was written the 
address of a new-comer who lived across the 
track at the other end of the village. The mar- 
keting had gone there 1 

“Well, I never heard of such a thing!" she 
commented blankly, and, as usual, laughed. 

[ 23 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


It was but a brief ten minutes later that her 
husband was presenting his guests to her — ^they 
had come! She had been but hoping against 
hope that they would not. 

‘‘Cynthia, I want to introduce Mr. Warbur- 
ton and Mr. Kennard. I have persuaded them 
to dine with us to-night.’’ 

“It was awfully good of your husband to in- 
vite us,” said Mr. Warburton, who was the 
elder, pleasant-faced and gray-haired, with the 
refined accent and accustomed manner of a 
gentleman. “I hope we’ll not inconvenience 
you, Mrs. Callender.” 

“No, I hope we’re not inconveniencing you,” 
murmured the other, who looked nineteen and 
was twenty-nine, who spoke from somewhere 
down in his throat and blushed with every 
word. 

“Not in the least,” said Mrs. Callender, im- 
mediately and intrepidly rising to the occasion. 
She was a stanchly hospitable little soul, and to 
have refused a welcome to the guests foisted on 
her would have been as impossible to her at any 
time as to the proverbial Arab. There was an 
inscrutable defiance in her eyes, however, when 
they met her husband’s, which puzzled him 
uncomfortably. 

“Mr. Nichols wished us all to dine at the 
Waldorf-Astoria,” he explained — Mr. Nichols 
was the senior partner of the firm. “But I 
1341 


A Good Dinner 


found, accidentally, that these gentlemen were 
extremely tired of living at hotels, and longed 
for a little home-like dinner, by way of variety/’ 

‘‘We have been so much in your big hotels,” 
said Mr. Warburton apologetically. “It makes 
one very dull, after a time, I think. You can’t 
imagine, Mrs. Callender, our joy when Mr. 
Callender so kindly offered to take us in. It’s 
so uncommonly jolly of you both to treat us in 
this way.” 

“I remembered that you said we were to 
have a particularly good dinner to-night, so I 
didn’t telegraph you when I found that they 
could come,” said Mr. Callender when the 
party had separated to dress and he and his 
wife were alone in their own room. “Nichols 
is very anxious to have them pleased — I told 
you that before, I think. They’re looking at 
machines, and if they take the London agency 
for us it will make a big difference. Why on 
earth did you look at me in that way down- 
stairs ? Is there anything wrong ?” 

“No; nothing is wrong,” said his wife iron- 
ically, “except that we haven't any dinner — 
to speak of. Oh, dear, if you make me laugh 
I’ll never be able to hook this gown. No, it isn't 
the least bit tight, it’s almost too loose, in fact 
— but I can’t hook it when I laugh. Chauncey, 
the order went wrong in some way, this morn- 
ing, and the marketing never came at all. Just 
[35] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


stand and take that in. If you had only helped 
me at breakfast when I asked you to, it 
wouldn't have happened. I was away all the 
afternoon, and, of course, Catherine never sent 
for anything — just sat and waited. There’s 
nothing in the house but some cans of mock- 
turtle soup and tomatoes, and one can of corned 
beef, and a small one of plum pudding. Cath- 
erine is going to warm the beef in the tomatoes, 
and make a sauce for the pudding. I’d die be- 
fore I’d apologize beforehand to those men; 
they’d never forgive themselves for coming.” 

Mr. Callender whistled. ‘‘Good gracious! 
And to think we’ve come from the Waldorf- 
Astoria for this! But I don’t see yet how it 
happened,” he incautiously objected. “I should 
think you could have managed better in some 
way, Cynthia.” 

“Oh, you do, do you?” said Mrs. Callender. 
“Well, I don’t. If you had the housekeeping 
to look after in a place like this, Chauncey, 
where you never can get anything you want, 
and there’s not a shop in the place open after 
half-past six — ” 

“Yes, I know, I know,” interposed Mr. Cal- 
lender hastily, dodging the subject with the 
ease of long practice. “But couldn’t you knock 
up an omelet, or a Welsh rarebit, or some sort 
of a side dish? Couldn’t you borrow some- 
thing ?” 


1361 


A Good Dinner 


Mrs. Callender shook her head tragically. 

“Nelly went to the Appletons and the War- 
ings to see if she couldn’t get some eggs, but 
they had only one left at each place. It’s no 
use, Chauncey, we’ve got to do the best we can. 
I’ve put on my prettiest gown, and — did you 
bring the wine ?” 

“Yes, and it’s good,” said Mr. Callender 
with returning cheerfulness. He was glad now 
that he had paid a price for it that w^as too large 
ever to be divulged to his wife. 

“And the flowers ?” 

“What flowers?” 

“The flowers you said you were going to 
bring me.” 

“My dear girl, I never thought of them from 
that moment to this.” 

“Then we have nothing for the center of the 
table but that old crumpled-up fernery,” she 
paused tragically. “Not even fruit! There’s 
another plank gone.” 

“Never mind, you’re the whole platform,” 
said her husband with jollity. “You always 
manage some way.” 

“I have to,” she pleaded, looking at herself 
approvingly in the glass. The jetted black 
dress set off her white neck and arms very well. 
She never considered herself pretty, but she had 
an infectious smile, brilliant teeth, and those 
very light gray eyes that look black under ex- 
[37] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


citement. She cast a provocative glance at her 
husband, with mock coquetry, and then deftly 
avoided his outstretched arm. 

‘Tve no time for you,’’ she said saucily. 
'‘But for goodness’ sake, Chauncey, rise to the 
occasion all you canT 

The two irreproachably attired men who 
made their entrance into the drawing-room 
looked at her in a manner which she certainly 
found encouraging. She concluded that the 
chances were good for making them enjoy the 
dinner, irrespective of its quality. She was en- 
joying their unspoken admiration, and the con- 
versation also, when Mr. Warburton returned 
to the subject of their invitation. 

"It’s so good of you to have us without an} 
notice — so uncommonly jolly for us. We’ve 
been so tired of hotel cooking, after the 
steamer.” 

"Yes,” chimed in the other, "it grew to be 
almost as tiresome to us as the beastly tinned 
food we lived on when we were in Africa.” 

"Oh, have you been in Africa lately?” asked 
Mrs. Callender with composure, although she 
and her husband felt the piercing of a mortal 
dart, and did not dare to look at each other. 

"Yes, Kennard and I were on an exploring 
expedition last year, accidentally; it’s quite a 
long tale — ^but we lived on tinned soups and 
meats, and even plum pudding — fancy it in the 
138 ] 


A Good Dinner 


hot climate ! — until even the smell of them sick- 
ened us. WeVe not been able to touch a bit 
of tinned food since.’’ 

^'Canned things — or tinned, as you call 
them — are very useful in emergencies,” said 
Mr. Callender with idiotic solemnity. ‘‘You 
know you have to eat them sometimes — when 
you can’t— help yourself, you know. Oh, 
yes, in emergencies tinned things are very use- 
ful — if you like ’em.” 

Mr. Kennard laughed heartily, as if at some 
delicate joke. “Ah, yes, yes, if you like them 
— if you like them, Warburton, yes — mind 
that, yes !” 

“Excuse me for a moment,” said Mrs. Cal- 
lender with graceful deliberation, sweeping 
slowly out of the room, and as soon as the door 
had closed behind her rushing into the kitchen 
wildly. The fortunes of war were against her, 
but win the victory she would. There had to 
be some way out of this ! 

“Don’t dish up a thing, Catherine,” she or- 
dered breathlessly. “It is no use; the gentlemen 
never eat anything canned. I’ve got to think 
up something else.” Daunted by the grim face 
of the insulted cook, she turned appealingly to 
the waitress, a young and venturesome person, 
as woman to woman. “You must know of 
something I could do, Nelly!” 

“The Warings, ma’am — ” 

1 39 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


“You told me you’d been there, and that 
everything they had was cooked for their own 
dinner.” 

The eyes of Irish Nelly sparkled. “That’s 
just it, ma’am. Mr. Waring’s home late to- 
night, and they’re only just now sitting down 
to the soup. I seen it going in through the 
window. If you — ” she stopped tentatively. 

“Well, well — say it!” 

“Sure, they’d loan you the whole dinner^ 
ma’am, if you asked it.” 

The light of kindred inspiration kindled in 
Mrs. Callender. The neighborhood was prac- 
tically a joint-stock food company, where 
maids might be seen flitting through the back 
yard at any hour of the day or evening, with 
the spoils of the borrower. But an entire din- 
ner! The magnificence of the scheme took 
Mrs. Callender’s breath away. 

“You’d give the lend of it yourself, ma’am,’^ 
said Nelly impartially. 

Mrs. Callender gasped — and assented. 

“Come !” she said, and followed by the maid, 
dashed out of the kitchen door, down the back 
piazza steps, and then up again on the piazza 
of the adjoining house. 

The people seated at the table in the dining- 
room looked up at the long window, amazed to 
see Mrs. Callender gesticulating insanely at 
them from without. 


[40] 


A Good Dinner 


‘‘Don’t help any more of that soup,” she 
called insistently. “Don’t help any more of it 
— wait till I get in.” The window opened from 
the inside, and she hurled herself into the room. 
“No, noT she answered the look on their hor- 
ror-struck faces, “it’s not poisoned. I don’t 
mean that — it’s all right; but I want it myself, I 
want your dinner. Oh, will you let me take 
it home with me?” 

“My dear Mrs. Callender,” expostulated Mr. 
Waring in a quieting voice, rising cautiously. 

“No, I’m not crazy ! I mean just what I say. 
My husband has brought home company, and 
we had only a canned dinner, and they can’t 
eat it because they’ve been in Africa — and, oh, 
I can’t explain. And it’s so important to treat 
them well, and — oh, you dear thing!” 

For Mrs. Waring had handed the soup to 
Nelly and was already giving orders to her own 
maid. 

“Don’t say another word,” she commanded 
rapidly, with a woman’s perception grasping 
the situation. “Send us over just what you 
have in exchange. We have only a plain home 
dinner — roast beef, vegetables, macaroni, cot- 
tage pudding — you can put the things in your 
oven again. Henry, carry over this roast, will 
you? Don’t make any noise, any of you.” 

“I’ll take the potatoes,” said Mrs. Callen- 
der fervently, but as she climbed her own piazza 
[41] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


steps once more and saw the ghostly procession 
that came and went stealthily bearing dishes, 
her knees suddenly bent under her, and she 
leaned against one of the piazza posts, too weak 
from laughter to move. 

‘'Take care, youdl drop that dish,” said Mr. 
Waring interposing a dexterous arm, while he 
endeavored to balance the roast on the railing. 
“Mrs. Callender, don’t sit down on the piazza; 
get up. You’ll have me laughing, too, if you 
don’t stop, and I’ve got to take this in and go 
back for plates.” 

“We have plates,” said Mrs. Callender, 
strangling. “Oh, Mr. Waring, we have plates 
— we have something. Oh, Mr. Waring, go 
and leave me, go and leave me! I’ll never be 
able to stand up.” 

“Hello, what’s the matter?” Mr. Callender, 
with an excited whisper, came peering out into 
the semi-darkness. “That back door keeps let- 
ting in an infernal draught. What on earth 
are you and Waring doing out here, Cynthia? 
And you without a thing over your shoulders ! 
I call that mean, having a good time out here 
by yourselves, and leaving me inside to do all 
the entertaining. Don’t you know that we’re 
waiting for dinner, and it’s after half-past seven 
o’clock?” 

His ill-used expression was the last straw. 
Mr. Waring rocked and reeled with his platter, 
[42] 


A Good Dinner 


while the roast performed an obligato move- 
ment. 

‘"Oh!” moaned Mrs. Callender as her hus- 
band finally assisted her to an erect position, 
and offendedly took up the dish of potatoes. 
^‘Don’t say a word, don’t ask me a thing; you’ll 
never in this world know all I’ve gone through 
in the last hour — you couldn’t take it in. But 
I’ve got the dinner — your Englishmen are pro- 
vided for — ^your future is assured, and all that 
we have to do now is to go in and eat — and 
eat — ^and eat.” 


V 


The Strength of Ten 



The Strength of Ten 

H FTER plunging from the light and 
comfort of the heated train to the 
track, just below the little Gothic sta- 
tion of Braewood, John Atterbury had well- 
nigh half a mile to walk before reaching his 
suburban residence. The way led in part 
across untilled fields from the inclosures of 
which bars had been removed to facilitate the 
passage of daily commuters. In the slant sun- 
light of a summer evening, with insects chirp- 
ing in the dusty grass by the side of the worn 
foot-path, and a fresh breeze from outlying 
meadows scented with clover and milkweed to 
fan the brow of the toiler, this walk served as 
a pleasant approach, in the company of conver- 
sational friends, to further country refreshment 
— the hammock on the verandah, the intimate 
society of rosebushes, or a little putting on the 
sward at the back of the house. But on a night 
in January, with the thermometer five degrees 
above zero, and a fierce wind blowing out of il- 
limitable blackness, life in the suburbs demand- 
ed strenuous will-power. Men put their heads 
down and ran in silence, with overcoats tightly 
buttoned, and hands beating together, their 
footsteps sounding heavily on the frozen earth. 
[47] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


The wind cut John Atterbury's strong lungs 
like a knife, and his feet seemed to stumble 
against the cold as if it had been a visible bar- 
rier. Moreover, he bore within him no light- 
ness of spirit, but all the chill and fatigue of a 
hard day spent in business transactions that 
have come to nothing, added to the bitter 
knowledge of an immediate and pressing need 
for money in the common uses of life. He had 
a numbing sense of defeat, and worse than that, 
of inadequacy. If the man whom he was to 
meet to-night did not bring relief, he knew not 
where to turn. His tired brain revolved sub- 
consciously futile plans for the morrow, while 
his one overmastering desire was to reach the 
light and warmth and rest of the cozy house 
that sheltered his young wife and three small 
children. 

With a sharp pang of disappointment, he 
perceived, as he turned the corner, that the 
front of the villa was in darkness except for a 
dim light in his wife^s room, and as he opened 
the door with his latch key no gush of hot air 
greeted him, but a stony coldness. He knocked 
against a go-cart in the square hall on his way 
to light the gas, and his wife’s voice called down 
softly, 

‘Ts that you, dear?” 

‘Wes. Are you ill?” 

“No, only resting. Aren’t you coming up ?” 

[48] 


The Strength of Ten 


‘‘In a moment’’ 

He divested himself of his hat and coat, and 
stood absently trying to warm his hands at the 
frozen register, and then with a long sigh, pre- 
pared to take up this end of the domestic burden 
with the patient use of habit. He went up- 
stairs with a firm and even step, treading more 
lightly as he passed the nursery door where 
the baby was going to sleep under the charge of 
Katy, the nurse-maid, and entered the room 
where his wife lay on the lounge in a crimson 
dressing-gown, a flowered coverlet thrown 
over her feet, her dark hair lying in rings on 
the white pillow, and her large, dark eyes 
turned expectantly toward him. The comfort 
of the pretty, luxurious room, which gave no 
hint of this new poverty in its fittings, was 
eclipsed by the icy chill that was like an opaque 
atmosphere. 

The wind outside hurled itself at the house 
and shook the shutters. 

Atterbury turned up the gas, and then sat 
down on the couch by his wife and kissed her. 

“What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing but that old pain; It will go over 
if I lie still — it was my only chance if we are to 
go out to-night. It’s really better now. I prom- 
ised Mrs. Harrington faithfully this afternoon 
that we’d come, in spite of the weather. Do 
you mind ?” 


Little Stories of Married Life 


''No. Is Harrington home yet?’' 

"She expects him back this evening. Oh, 
Jack, Bridget was sent for this morning before 
the breakfast things were cleared away. She 
really didn’t want to go off this time, but that 
mother of hers — ! The children were more 
troublesome than usual, and had to be taken 
care of. They’re all asleep now but the baby. 
I sent them off earlier than usual on account 
of the cold. Katy is no good around the house 
and we’ve had such a day ! The furnace — ” 

"I see that it’s out.” 

"Both fires were out, but the range is going 
now. The wind was all wrong. We made up 
the furnace three times, but I couldn’t remem- 
ber how to turn the dampers ; they never seemed 
to be the right way. There’s a grate fire in 
the nursery, though.” 

"The water hasn’t frozen in the pipes, I 
hope?” 

There was an ominous sound in his voice. 

She nodded speechlessly, and looked at him, 
her eyes large with unshed tears. 

"Why didn’t you tell me?” He rose for ac- 
tion. "You should have sent for the plumber 
at once.” 

"There wasn’t anyone to send, and it was so 
late when I found it out; he wouldn’t have 
come until to-morrow, anyway.” 

There was a certain look in his wife’s face 
[50] 


The Strength of Ten 

at times which filled Atterbury with extreme 
tenderness. In the seven years of their wedded 
life she had explained to him every varying 
grade of emotion which the sight of him caused 
her, but there were many things which he had 
never thought of telling her, or even conscious- 
ly formulating to himself. He went over to 
the closet, poured out some cordial in a small 
glass and brought it to her to drink, watching 
narrowly until a faint tinge of color relieved 
the bluish pallor around her mouth. Then he 
poured out another small glass for himself, and 
spread the down coverlet more closely over 
her, frustrating her evident desire to rise. 

“You lie still.’' He passed a heavy, affec 
tionate hand over her forehead, and she rested 
her cheek against it with a passionate helpless- 
ness. “What on earth did you want to do all 
the work for, to-day? Why didn’t you get 
the McCaffrey woman? You’ve no business to 
tire yourself out like this, Agnes. I don’t see 
how you’re ever going out this evening!” 

“Oh, I can go, I’m so much better now. I 
thought — I know that we have so little money 
— I wanted to economize; other women seem 
to do such things without any trouble at all.” 

“Well, we won’t economize that way. Al- 
ways get what help is necessary.” He spoke 
with the quick, matter-of-fact decision of a 
man used to affairs, temporarily regardless of 
1 51] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


the financial situation, whose cramping iron 
restrictions could be felt at every turn. ‘‘FIi 
go down now and start things up 

‘'Your dinner is in the oven. Fll send Katy 
to you as soon as Herbert is asleep. She can't 
leave him now, for he crawls over the crib and 
drops out.'' 

“All right ! Don't you worry. I'll get it." 

He ran downstairs, arrayed for service, and 
Agnes listened to his receding footsteps, a 
warm comfort in her heart despite that racking 
of the bones, as of one “smote hip and thigh," 
which comes to the delicately-born with unac- 
customed kitchen-work. After some moments 
— spent, as she guiltily divined, in searching 
for the coal shovel — the clatter and rattle of 
the furnace showed that a master hand had 
taken it in charge, 

Atterbury stoked and shoveled with every 
quick sense suddenly concentrated on a deep 
and hidden care. If anything should happen 
to his wife — vague, yet awful phrase — if any- 
thing should “happen" to his wife! She was 
not made for struggle; the doctor had told him 
that before. He knew, none better ! how brave, 
loving, yet sensitive a spirit was housed in that 
tender and fragile body. If she were to leave 
him and their little children — 

No mist came over his eyes at the phantasm, 
but a sobered keenness of vision gleamed there. 

[52] 


The Strength of Ten 

There were certain things which it behooved a 
man to do. He walked over to the coal bins — 
they were nearly empty. Well, more coal must 
be ordered at once; he would himself speak 
about it to Murphy, and make arrangements to 
pay that last bill — somehow. 

A catalogue of indebtedness unrolled itself 
before him, but he gazed at it steadily. The 
fog-like depression was gone. He felt in his 
veins the first tingling of that bitter wine of 
necessity which invigorates the strong spirit. 

And there was Harrington, at whose house 
the card party was to be held to-night. He 
drew a long breath, and his heart beat quicker. 
He had not told his wife how much he counted 
on seeing Harrington, but he was sure that 
she had divined it — nothing else would have 
taken him out again on such a night. This 
wealthy and genial neighbor had held out great 
hopes of furthering one scheme of Atterbury's 
in that trip out West from which he had just 
returned. Atterbury had helped Harrington 
about his patent, and the latter professed him- 
self eager to repay the service. If Harrington 
had used his influence — as he could use it — 
and had got the company to look at the land, 
why, it was as good as sold. Atterbury knew 
that it held the very qualities for which they 
were looking. If the plan were a success, then 
what had been started first as an attractive 
[S3] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


‘‘flyer’’ might prove to be a main dependence 
when most needed. He felt a little bitterly that 
the friends on whom he had most counted had 
failed him. Callender — Nichols — W aring — in 
their plans there was no room for him. This 
meeting with Harrington was the crucial point 
on which the future hung. 

When Atterbury went back to his wife, 
warmed with his work, she was standing be- 
fore the mirror, dressing ; a faint, smoky smell 
arose from the register. The wind was still 
evidently in the wrong direction for chimneys. 
An infant’s prattle, mixed with an occasional 
whimper, came from^the nursery. 

“I’ve wrapped hot cloths around the pipes,” 
he said cheerfully, “and left a couple of kero- 
sene lamps lighted on the floor near them. 
We’ll have to take our chances now. What’s 
this envelope on the mantelpiece?” His face 
fell. “Another assessment from the Associa- 
tion ? That makes the eleventh this month, be- 
sides the regular insurance, that was due on 
the first.” 

“But you can’t pay it !” She had looked bright 
when he came in, but now her lips quivered. 

“Oh, I’ll have to pay that ; don’t you worry 
about it. I tell you, though, Agnes, I’d be 
worth a good deal more to you dead than I am 
now.” 

“Don’t! You know I hate to hear you talk 
[54] 


The Strength of Ten 


like that. Fd never take your old insurance 
money.’’ She grasped him by her two slender, 
cold hands and tried ineffectually to shake him 
while he smiled down at her, and then hid her 
head on his breast, raising it, however, to say, 

‘‘Did you eat your dinner? I hope that it 
wasn’t burned.” 

“I ate — some of it !” 

“Oh,” she groaned, “and on such a night!” 

“Never mind. I’m counting on a good hot 
little supper at Harrington’s. And, Agnes — ” 
having none of the care of the children, he had 
a habit of intervening at inopportune moments 
with well-meant suggestions — “just listen to 
that child! Don’t you think he might go to 
sleep better if I brought him in here with us for 
a few moments?” 

‘'No/' said his wife. She added afterward, 
sweetly in token of renewed amity, “He’s such 
a darling, and he looks more like you every 
day. He’ll be asleep soon. But I’m sure Gwen- 
dolen will have the croup to-night, the house 
has been so cold.” 

“Oh, of course,” said Atterbury grimly. By 
some weird fatality the festive hour abroad was 
almost inevitably followed by harrowing at- 
tendance on one or other of the infants in the 
long watches of the night. Husband and wife 
looked at each other and laughed, and then 
[55] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


kissed in silence, like two children, in simple 
accord. 

It was with many instructions to Katy that 
the Atterburys finally left the house, instruc- 
tions that comprehended the dampers, the 
babies, and the pipes. 

‘'I don’t suppose that she will remember a 
word that we have told her,” said Agnes 
resignedly. 

‘‘Well, we are only going three doors away; 
ril run back after a while and see.” 

“I’m so glad I’m going with youf^ she whis- 
pered as they walked the few steps, he trying 
to shield her from the violence of the wind. 

“Ah, yes,” he jibed, “it’s such a new thing, 
isn’t it, to be with me! You ought to be 
ashamed of yourself.” 

The Harringtons’ house was certainly a 
change from the one they had left. Delicious 
warmth radiated from it as the ample doors 
unclosed to let the guests in; the crimson- 
shaded lights were reflected on the card tables 
and the polished floor, and laughing voices 
greeted the newcomers. 

“You are late,” said the hostess, who was 
considered handsome, with heavy black eye- 
brows, dimples in her white, rounded cheeks, 
and a petulant expression. She wore a bunch 
of violets in the belt of her light blue gown. 
“You are late, but not so late as my hus- 

[S6] 


The Strength of Ten 


band. I expected him home to dinner, and he 
hasn’t come yet. It’s the way I’m always treat- 
ed,” she pouted engagingly; ‘'you other men 
will have to be very, very nice to me.” 

She stared with public audacity into the eyes 
of the man nearest her, and then let her long 
black lashes sweep her cheek. It pleased her 
to pose as the attractive young married woman, 
and by tacit consent the suburban husbands 
were allowed by their wives to go through the 
piotions of flirting with her. 

Atterbury settled down to the strain of wait- 
ing. The company was composed of couples 
who saw each other daily, the men on the 
trains, the women in their small social rounds. 
Every event that happened in their little circle 
was common property, to be discussed by all. 
The evolution of Mrs. Oliver’s black spangled 
gown, the expensive house which the new doc- 
tor was erecting under the auspices of the 
Building Loan Association, Totty Jenkins’ 
stirring experiences in the kindergarten, and 
Mr. Waring’s sudden substitution of the seven- 
thirty-one morning train for the eight- fourteen, 
were subjects interspersed with, and of the 
same calibre^ as discussions on the presidential 
candidate, the last new book, or affairs in 
Africa. 

In spite of this pooling of interests, so to 
speak, the weekly gathering at the houses of 
[57] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


different members always took on an aspect of 
novelty. Everyone dressed for the occasion, 
and there was usually a good game of cards, 
and a modest little supper afterwards, and the 
women met other men besides their husbands, 
and the men met each other and smoked after 
supper. The only real variety in the pro- 
gramme was that the simple and hearty friend- 
liness beneath all this was more apparent at 
some houses than at others. 

The Harringtons — somewhat new arrivals 
— were the confessedly rich people of the set, 
and the entertainments which they gave were 
characterized with a little more pomp and cir- 
cumstance. Mrs. Harrington, for all her per- 
functory belleship, was a lively and entertaining 
hostess. Everyone strove to make up to her for 
Harrington’s absence, and a particularly cordial 
spirit prevailed. It was always a secret trial to 
Agnes not to play cards at the same table as 
her husband in the progressive game, but to- 
night she did not mind, for his steel-blue eyes 
meet hers in a kind, remembering glance when- 
ever she looked for it, that spoke of a sweet 
and intimate companionship, with which out- 
side events had nothing to do. 

In one of the intermissions of the game 
Atterbury heard Henry Waring say to Nichols, 

‘‘Did you see the little item in one of the 


The Strength of Ten 


evening papers about that Western Company to 
whom Harrington sold his patent?” 

''No, what was it?” asked Nichols. 

"They’re going to start up the plant at once 
near some town in Missouri, IVe forgotten 
the name — paid fifty thousand for the ground. 
You see, they required peculiar natural facili- 
ties; that’s what’s kept them back so long. It 
seems a good deal of money to pay for a clay- 
bank. Of course, Harrington’s in a hurry to 
start them up; he’ll get a big royalty.” 

"You are not to talk business,” said Mrs. 
Harrington’s gay voice. 

Atterbury felt the room swirl around with 
him; he knew the name of the town well 
enough ! He had been sure from the first that 
those barren acres of his held just what the 
Company was looking for, but he had never 
dreamed of getting more than ten or fifteen 
thousand for them. A warm gratitude to Har- 
rington filled him, and then a chill of doubt. 
The newspaper only chronicled a rumor, not a 
certainty, for no real sale could take place 
without his knowledge. 

He did not know how he played after this, 
and it was a tremendous relief when the players 
left the tables and stood or sat in little homelike 
groups, all talking and laughing at once in a 
merry tumult. There was in the air that fra- 
grant aroma of newly-made coffee which is so 
[59] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


peculiarly convivial in the suburbs, and the 
absence of Harrington, who was nevertheless 
considered to be a jolly good fellow, had ceased 
to be noticed by anyone but Atterbury, when 
the sound of wheels was heard grating on the 
driveway outside. He clutched the chair he 
stood by, although his face was impassive. 
The hour he had been waiting for was here — 
Harrington had come. 

Mrs. Harrington ran into the hall with an 
exclamation of pleasure, as the door opened, 
letting in a flood of cold air and a large man 
heavily wrapped in fur. The listening com- 
pany heard him say, 

‘‘What in — time — have you got this crowd 
here to-night for?'’ The words were respecta- 
ble, but the tone cursed. 

There was a stiffening change in her voice. 
“Hush! Didn't you get my letter?" 

“What letter? No, if I had I wouldn't have 
been fool enough to come home for a quiet 
night's rest ; I might have known I couldn't get 
it here. You can't live without a lot of people 
cackling around you." 

“Go to bed, then. Nobody wants to see 
you !" It was the quick thrust of a rapier. 

“Much rest I'd get with that mob in there." 

The woman flashed back at him with a white 
heat, 

“You have your men’s dinners and your wine 
[6o] 


The Strength of Ten 


parties — and you grudge me a little pleasure 
like this! It’s like you; it’s like — ” For very 
shame’s sake, the guests were hurriedly talking 
to cover the sounds of strife. 

‘'Harrington’s trip evidently hasn’t done him 
much good,” said Nichols to Atterbury. “I 
doubt his success. He has too many large 
schemes on hand; what he makes in one way 
he uses to float something else.” 

“It’s possible,” said Atterbury thoughtfully. 

“It doesn’t do to take things like that; if you 
lose your grip you can’t get on.” 

“That’s what I’m finding out now. I don’t 
mind telling you, Mr. Nichols, that I’m in a 
hole. But you have no experience in that way ; 
your business is secure. 

The two men had drawn to one side and 
were talking in low and confidential tones. 

“Is it? I tell you, Atterbury, the time I went 
through five years ago was awful, simply awful. 
No, I never said a word to a soul here; nobody 
even suspected. There was one time when I 
thought I’d have to send Sue and the babies 
home to her father, and light out for the 
Klondyke.” 

“But you didn’t,” said Atterbury, his own 
pulse leaping to the courage of the other man 
with a sudden kinship. 

“No, I didn’t go. You can't be discouraged 
when you have a wife and children to support. 

[6i] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


Things turned out — it was most unexpected, 
ril tell you all about it some day. It's well that 
the opportunities of life are not bounded by 
our knowledge of them, Atterbury." 

They looked at each other in silence with a 
large assent. 

‘‘By the way, we are rather at a standstill 
at present," said Nichols after a pause. “WeVe 
got to get some one to represent us in South 
Africa at once — ^business possibilities are open- 
ing up there tremendously. You don't happen 
to know of the right person ?" 

“Myself," said Atterbury. 

“I wish it were possible," said Nichols po- 
litely. “But of course that's out of the ques- 
tion. We must have some one who thoroughly 
understands the business, and the machines — 
one who can take the initiative. The fact is, 
either Callender or I ought to go, but we can't 
leave. We virtually need a third man in the 
firm, but he must have capital." 

“Please come into the other room, all of you," 
said the hostess with a forced playfulness, 
pulling aside the portieres which had concealed 
the little feast. There was a heightened color 
in her face, and her eyes were hard. “Mr. Har- 
rington says that he is going to stay in here 
until we have finished, but I know you won't 
miss himr 

“Oh, come along in, Harrington," said Nich- 
[62] 


The Strength of Ten 


ols good-naturedly. ‘Tell us of your travels 
in the wild and woolly West.’' 

“There’s nothing to tell,” said Harrington 
shortly, turning away from the instinctive ques- 
tion in Atterbury’s look with almost brutal 
rudeness, and pushing past him to an armchair, 
where he sat down and closed his eyes wearily. 
He was a big man, with thick, black hair, and 
a black mustache, which dropped over a heavy 
chin. 

“I’ve passed the nights in beastly sleeping 
cars, and the days in dining and wining a lot 
of low, greasy politicians. I’m Jog-tired.” 
There were deep lines in his low forehead and 
under his eyes — and his large, white, powerful 
hand clasped and unclasped nervously. 

“You go in there, both of you. I’m all broke 
up. My wife will entertain you; her damn 
chatter drives me mad !” 

“I’ll stay here with you,” said Atterbury 
resolutely. 

“I will send your supper in to you,” called 
Mrs. Harrington lightly, as she saw him draw 
up a chair to one of the deserted card tables 
near which Harrington was sitting with his 
eyes still closed and his head leaned back 
against the cushions. 

He paid no attention to the dishes, but At- 
terbury ate and drank quickly, like the hungry 
man he was, though hardly knowing what he 
[63] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


tasted, except that it was warm and good. 
Then he sat absently looking at the scene in the 
supper room where the guests were grouped 
around the table, the wax-lights in the can- 
delabra illumining the women opposite him; 
Mrs. Harrington's brilliant eyes and blue gown, 
the fair hair and scarlet draperies of pretty 
Mrs. Waring, the white teeth and charming 
smile of black-robed Mrs. Callender, and the 
old-rose bodice, slender neck, and dusky, 
drooping head that belonged to Agnes. 

In spite of the festive appearance, there was 
manifest chill and restraint. The men, all but 
Callender and Nichols, who talked apart, had 
shifted over to seats by their wives, a position 
which does not require due exertion in the 
matter of entertainment. It is difficult to eat 
and drink merrily when your host is palpably 
waiting for your departure. Agnes's hand 
shook as she held the cup of hot coffee to which 
she had been looking forward, and her creamed 
oysters were untouched while she tried to open 
a conversation with Mrs. Callender all about 
the Book Club. 

“Well," said Atterbury suddenly after a 
while, “what have you got to say to me, Har- 
rington?" The other man's manner was of- 
fensive, but Atterbury was disposed to be 
conciliating. 


[64] 


The Strength of Ten 


Harrington unclosed his heavy, dark-ringed 
eyes and gazed at him. 

“What have I got to say to you?’’ He gave a 
short laugh. “Why, nothing that I know of — 
nothing but that I have an infernal headache.” 
There was an extraordinary undercurrent of 
insolence in his manner which Atterbury was at 
a loss to explain. 

“I am sorry to have to disturb you if you are 
ill,” said Atterbury in level tones, “but a word 
will suffice, Harrington. I know that the land 
is virtually sold — it was in the evening paper. 
How much does it bring?” 

“What land?” 

“My land.” 

“I don’t know anything about your property; 
the ground that the Company bought belonged 
to me.” 

“To you ! You never told me that you owned 
any in Missouri.” 

“Do I have to- tell you everything?” Har- 
rington’s black eyes were contemptuously 
defiant. 

“No, but you will have to tell me this/' said 
Atterbury. 

Harrington shifted uneasily. “Well, then, 
take the truth if you want it. I meant to keep 
faith with you fairly enough, and I would 
have stuck to your interests if I could have 
afforded to — that’s the whole gist of the mat- 
[65] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


ter. And youVe no case for complaint; we 
hadn’t signed any agreement.” 

‘‘You found another section like mine?” 

Harrington nodded. “Nearly as good. I 
bought it for a song, and the Company sent out 
a surveyor and a couple of geologists of their 
own to look it up, and paid me fifty thousand 
for it — that is, indirectly, of course. I didn’t 
appear in the sale and by — I lost every cent in 
a deal yesterday.” He swore under his breath. 

“You used the private information I gave 
you, I suppose?” said Atterbury in dangerously 
low tones. 

A flicker of a smile crossed Harrington’s 
moody face. 

“Well, yes. You gave me the points, and I 
used them; any man would.” 

“You miserable — sneaking — liar!” said At- 
terbury very slowly. He rose, and brought 
both hands down on the table with a gesture 
that did not lose in power because it made no 
sound. “No man that lives shall cheat me 
with impunity. I’ll brand you for what you 
are!” 

“You can’t,” said Harrington insolently. 

Atterbury smiled with the scorn which dis- 
dained reply, and turned on his heel. He did 
not see the startled glance of Nichols and Cal- 
lender as he went over to a place beside them. 
His wife wondered, as they did, at a new roy- 
[ 66 ] 


The Strength of Ten 


alty in his tall bearing, as of one used to high 
command, and bowed herself in adoration 
before it. 

He defeated, he cast down ! In that moment 
of tingling indignation he felt himself a con- 
queror ; nor obstacle, nor loss, nor circumstance, 
nor treachery should stand in his way. This 
blow had felled the last barrier that confined a 
free spirit, superbly at one with the elemental 
force which displaces atoms and creates new 
worlds. 

The current of a mighty strength was in 
him, dominant, compelling, that strength which 
in some mysterious way has a volition of its 
own, apart from him who possesses it, bending 
men and events to his uses. 

There was a vibrant tone in his voice as he 
said, 

‘‘Mr. Nichols, I want to go to South Africa 
for you.” 

The gaze of the two men met with almost an 
electric shock. 

“But you don't know the business !” 

The protest half invited discussion. 

“I can learn it.” 

« “We don't want a man to learn/' said Cal- 
ender, speaking for the first time. “You must 
understand that, Atterbury! We can find men 
on every street corner who would like to learn. 
We want some one with a good working knowl- 
[67] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


edge, who has had experience, and is familiar 
with our machines and our methods — one who 
can leave his family — and has capital — '' 

Atterbury shook his head. “No ! You want 
a man like me, one who cannot only handle 
your machines, but handle men, and has had 
experience outside of your narrow line. Good 
heavens, Callender, the man you speak of — 
barring the capital — can almost be picked up 
at the street corners. Your house is full of 
such as he — good, plodding, trustworthy men, 
who understand what they have been taught 
about your machines and your accounts and 
your methods, and who understand nothing 
else ; who stick to their desks year in and year 
out. Will one like that do for you ? You know 
that it will not ! Granted that I don't know the 
business as you do — that's but a detail ; I know 
what business really is. Granted that IVe got 
no capital — I've got the one thing you really 
need, and that's the brains and energy to get it 
for you. Take me into your conferences, give 
me a fighting knowledge of what you want, 
and I'll bring in the capital. 

“The export trade has a tremendous future; 
my mind's been full of it lately. You send me to 
South Africa — to China — to the Philippines, 
and I'll undertake to double the business in 
three years, but you mustn't confine yourself 
to one narrow line ; you must broaden out. You 
[ 68 ] 


The Strength of Ten 


ought to be able to distance all your competi- 
tors; you ought to be able to merge them in 
your own company. For many reasons I can 
be worth more to you than any other man you 
know. Great Scott, Nichols, can’t you see that 
I’m the opportunity you want?” 

Nichols sat immovable, holding on to the 
arms of his chair with both hands. Facing the 
light of Atterbury’s face, the answering light 
shone in his own. Callender still objected, 
although plainly under great excitement. 

''You haven’t managed your own affairs so 
well.” 

"No,” said Atterbury, turning on him like 
lightning, "and you know why. You know 
just what claims the death of Anderson laid 
upon me, and how I’ve tried to carry them. 
They will be paid off now. Callender, you’re 
not worth my powder and shot; you’re just 
talking, Mr. Nichols, I’m speaking tO' you. 
You know I can handle this thing!” 

Both men rose unconsciously and looked at 
each other, with a long breath between them. 

"When will you send me out?” asked Atter- 
bury at last with his brilliant smile. 

"Come to me to-morrow at ten,” said Nich- 
ols, giving his hand to the other, who grasped 
it silently. "Mind, I don’t promise anything.” 

"No, we don’t promise anything,” agreed the 
excited Callender. 


[69] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


“No/’ said Atterbury jubilantly, “that’s all 
right. We’ve got a great future before us, my 
friends.” 

As he wheeled around he caught sight of 
Harrington, whom he had momentarily 
forgotten. 

“Ah,” he said airily, “do either of you own 
any stock in our host’s Company? It may be 
just as well for you to investigate a little; you 
may find that as the treasurer he’s been specu- 
lating with the funds. I’ll give you my reasons 
for this also — to-morrow.” 

“Come,” he said to Agnes, “we must be go- 
ing.” As they stepped out once more into the 
darkness, the wind nearly hurled them off their 
feet; a million icy points of snow pricked and 
stung the face. She clung to him, and he put 
his arm around her and swept her through the 
storm as a lover might his bride, unknowing 
of it. 

Yet for all that warm clasp, she subtly felt 
the severance of his thought from her, and 
when they were safely landed in the hall, she 
said nervously, 

“What was that I heard you saying to Mr. 
Nichols? You’re not going to leave me!” 

Her tone had in it the universal protest of 
womankind, to whom the bodily desertion is 
less than the spiritual one that makes it possible. 

He bent his ardent eyes upon her with a 
[70] 


The Strength of Ten 


glow which she had never seen in them even in 
the earliest days of their love. 

''Ah, but it will be only to come back to 
you,” he said with a leap forward to a joy 
that made parting dim, and she looked up at 
him with a soul so steeped in love that for the 
moment she could only desire what he did. 

The evidences of a clinging domesticity were 
again around them ; fierce blasts of heat from 
the furnace showed that Katy had peacefully 
forgotten the dampers ; the water dripped, 
dripped into the kitchen sink from the thawing 
pipes. A hollow clanging cough from the up- 
per regions told that poor little Gwendolen’s 
post-festive croup had indeed set in, but even 
this no longer appeared a bitter and blasting 
ill to Atterbury, but merely a temporary 
discomfort, to be gone with the morrow. 




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In the Reign of Quintilia 


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In the Reign of (^intilia 

H S Mr. Nichols sped on his homeward 
way to the suburbs by boat and train, 
the abstraction which the clerks had 
noted grew upon him. At forty-six, his leonine 
locks streaked with gray, the comfortable, solid, 
prosperous father of a family, the president 
of one corporation and member of Heaven 
only knows how many governing boards, Mr. 
Nichols was in love — deeply and irremediably 
in love — with his youngest daughter, an infant 
of parts. 

She was the sixth child, not the seventh, 
whom tradition surrounds with the mysterious 
opportunities of good fortune. She was, more- 
over, the fifth girl in unbroken succession, and 
her father, like many another man in like case, 
had not even looked at the baby until she was 
nearly a week old, only to fall a victim to the 
charms of the little warm, helpless being after 
he had once held it in his arms and felt the 
tiny rose-leaf fingers close over one of his. As 
he gazed intently at the face with its miniature 
features, the blue eyes suddenly opened and 
gazed at him unwinkingly for a space of sec- 
onds. Then the lids closed over them peaceful- 
ly, and a long sigh issued from the parted lips, 
[75] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


in its reflex breathing giving the indication of 
a ridiculous dimple at one corner of the mouth. 
When Mr. Nichols looked at his wife, who had 
been observing him, they both smiled, with a 
tightening of a new bond of affection between 
them. 

'Tretty nice sort of a girl, isn’t she?” he 
remarked as he handed the child back to the 
waiting nurse, and when he went downstairs 
his wife heard him whistling a tune that had 
been a part of their early betrothal days, and 
hid her face in the pillow with a happy glow 
on it, although she was a staid and respectable 
matron. 

It was noticed after this that Mr. Nichols 
contracted a habit of coming in each night and 
gazing at the child intently when he thought 
himself unobserved, and that he seemed to 
derive great and increasing satisfaction from 
the perusal. As the baby grew older her face 
lighted up for him as for no one else, and before 
she had reached her present age of two years 
they were sweethearts indeed, with a passion on 
his part which made it unbearable pain to him 
if she bumped her head or pinched her finger. 

‘^How is Quintilia?” 

The voice of a near neighbor arrested Mr. 
Nichols’s attention. A slow smile overspread 
his countenance at the mention of the beloved 
name, with which the doctor had playfully 
[76] 


In the Reign of Quintilia 

christened this fifth girl, to the exclusion of 
her lawful cognomen. 

''Oh, she’s all right. At least I hope she is 
to-night — ^she hasn’t been very well for a couple 
of days ; it’s bothered me a good deal.” 

"My wife says that she grows prettier every 
day,” continued the obliging neighbor. 

Mr. Nichols beamed. "She does. I’m com- 
ing home a little earlier to-night to see how 
she is. Her mother usually keeps her up for 
me when she’s well.” 

He could not tell how much he hoped against 
hope that she would be up and looking out for 
him. He knew so well how the little lovely 
white thing with the starry eyes and glinting 
curls would run to the stairway in her night- 
gown, and sitting down on the top step with 
all the delicious fluttering and sidling motions 
of her babyhood, would thrust her plump, bare 
pink foot up against his rough cheek with the 
delighted cry of, 

"Pa-pa, kiss a footie! Kiss a footie, pa-pa!” 

Then how he would mumble and kiss that 
darling foot, and pretend to eat it, finally 
snatching the adored baby in his arms, laugh- 
ing and struggling, to cuddle close to him when 
he pressed her to his heart, with the infinitely 
tender gentleness of the strong, as he carried 
her to her crib and laid her in it. His wife was 
always there, too, watching him with an indul- 
[ 77 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


gent smile. All love between them seemed to 
have grown deeper since it merged in this sixth 
child, whose advent had called forth a large 
offering of honest condolence from mistaken 
friends, and who had brought a joy which at 
first the parents decorously — nay, guiltily — 
concealed, to revel in it almost indecently after- 
wards. 

The novelty of the first-born, a boy, had 
hindered complete enjoyment, and with him, 
as with the four girls who followed close after, 
it was a matter of such supreme importance 
that all the small rules which governed the 
infantile world should be strictly observed. 

Even as a young woman Mrs. Nichols was 
a serious and conscientious mother, who read 
all the literature bearing on family health and 
education. The infants were trained with ad- 
amantine firmness from their birth, and as they 
grew older Mrs. Nichols attended kindergarten 
meetings where the child was meditated upon 
with deep graspings of the intellect, and also 
painstakingly sat through recitations mixed 
with exasperating calisthenics in the higher 
schools. In fine, she so ordered her days that 
when pussy-cats were under discussion in the 
morning classes to which Ethel and Edith be- 
longed, she could still lead their thoughts in- 
telligently pussywards in the afternoon, besides 
holding the fourteen-year-old Stan to that 
[78] 


In the Reign of Quintilia 

hour’s exercise in spelling which was also like 
an exercise in breaking stone. 

To the higher rule Quintilia promised from 
the first to be an exception. She made her own 
laws. When she lifted her little arms to be 
“taken up” it was not in the heart of mortal 
to resist her; food was given her when she 
cried for it, and for the life of her Mrs. Nichols 
could not always combat the temptation to hold 
the dear little clinging form in her arms, with 
the damp head and its thistledown curls nest- 
ling on her shoulder, and rock and sing her 
baby to sleep in the old-fashioned way. 

“No, I don’t think she’s any worse.” Mr. 
Nichols’s wife had met him at the door with 
the peaceful kiss of possession before reassur- 
ing him for the non-appearance of Quintilia. 
She was a woman of medium height, rather 
stout, with somewhat large features, a fresh 
complexion, thick black hair, brown eyes, and 
an expression that was at once pleasant and 
capable. The heart of her husband trusted in 
her implicitly, and her tone was a relief to him. 

“What did the doctor say?” 

“He thinks that it’s only a cold, but she 
must be kept very quiet. The nurse came this 
afternoon, but she doesn’t seem very — What 
is it. Miss Candy?” 

Mr. Nichols looked up at the stairs, and his 
tense gaze involuntarily softened. A pretty 
[79] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


girl in a blue and white cambric uniform ap- 
pears to most men as an angel of healing. This 
one had large and appealing eyes, and little 
brown fuzzy curls in front under her white 
cap. There was a slip of paper in the hand 
held forward. 

‘‘Would you kindly have this prescription 
filled at once? I forgot it when you sent out 
last.’’ 

“Certainly,” said Mr. Nichols with alacrity. 
“I’ve got my coat on. I’ll go for it now.” 

“Oh, thank you! And would you mind 
bringing home some alcohol? I think there 
ought to be some in the house.” 

“There is a bottle of alcohol,” interpolated 
Mrs. Nichols. 

“I’m so sorry, but I just tipped it over ac- 
cidentally. Would you please send one of the 
maids to sweep up the broken glass? Thank 
you.” 

The vision of the pretty face supported Mr. 
Nichols but insubstantially while he waited 
half an hour in the drug-store in contemplation 
of a deserted soda fountain, fly-specked pack- 
ages of brown headache cure, a white and bony 
array of tooth-brushes, and some open boxes 
of flabby cigars in a glass case under an electric 
lighter. A suburban drug-store is not exactly 
an enlivening spot, and he was to become fatal- 
ly well acquainted with it in the next few days. 

[8o] 


In the Reign of Quintilia 


To-night he went up and looked at the baby 
on his return; she was asleep, with cheeks 
flushed to a beautiful rose. She was breathing 
very hard, but still she slept, with her head 
thrown back, and the soft rings of hair spread 
out over the pillow; the curves of the little 
round body were carved out in the white bed- 
clothes. The light in the room was shaded, 
and the nurse sat by the table under it, writing 
out her official report with a gold pencil held 
in her taper fingers; but his wife sat and 
watched the child. A sudden ache invaded the 
man's heart. 

‘Ts she all right ?" he whispered. 

His wife nodded. ‘‘Oh, yes. Doesn't she 
look darling 

But Mr. Nichols did not answer. The nurse 
came forward and smoothed little Quintilia's 
pillow professionally. 

“She seems to take an interest," he whispered 
to his wife as they left the room. He felt the 
tenderness which a good man has for a young 
girl who has to earn her own living; she is 
somewhat on the same plane as himself, and it 
is a state of being of which he appreciates the 
difficulties. He realized that his wife's silence 
was distinctly unsympathetic. 

The children were very noisy that evening, 
without their mother's presence, in the hour 
allotted them before bedtime. The youngest, 

[8i] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


Loulou, who was next to the baby, was seven 
years old — a stubby, chubby, black-haired child, 
with that genius for saying the wrong thing in 
the wrong place which is a mother’s woe. As 
she climbed on her father’s knee to-night she 
kept saying : 

'‘Quintilia’s sick, father. Quintilia’s sick! 
Do you think she’ll be worse, to-morrow, fa- 
ther?” she grinned at him pleasantly, showing 
a mouth with three front teeth missing. 

Mr. Nichols resisted a strong impulse to 
set her down forcibly. His attitude toward 
Loulou was a continual reproach to him. He 
knew, as his wife often reminded him, that 
Loulou had been his pet when she was a baby ; 
he knew that he really loved her, and that if 
she were ill his fatherly affection would assert 
itself in the utmost care for her; but now her 
presence in rude and awkward health annoyed 
and irritated him beyond expression. 

‘‘If Quintilia dies, I’ll be the baby !” 

“For shame, Loulou!” said the eldest girl, 
Christine, who had her mother’s own gentle 
manner. “You mustn’t talk like that. Ethel 
and Edith, don’t make so much noise. They 
can’t go to bed, father dear, until Ann comes 
back; she’s just gone to the village for 
something Miss Candy wanted.” 

“Miss Candy is awful pretty!” said the 
bounding Loulou. “Stan waited by the stairs 
[82] 


In the Reign of Quintilia 


to-night to see her come down. She calls him 
Mr. Stanley, and he’s been going errands for 
her all the afternoon. And he put on his best 
jacket!” 

''I didn’t,” blurted Stan, with a very red 
face, regardless of the chorus of horrified ohos ! 
from the rest of the children. “Well, if I did, 
it was because the old one was torn.” 

“If Quintilia dies. I’ll be the baby.” Loulou 
reverted to the first idea. 

Stan cried, “Shut up, will you?” and threw 
his book at her, being a boy on whom years of 
training had had no appreciable effect; but 
Christine came and put her arm around her 
father’s neck and kissed him, with her soft 
braid of yellow hair falling across his shoulder, 
and he pressed the little comforter to him 
fondly. 

Anxiety about Quintilia had grown by morn- 
ing. Mrs. Nichols came down to breakfast 
in a brown cambric gown, with her hair brushed 
severely back from her forehead, and hurriedly 
drank a cup of coffee. The tense expression of 
her face, which she strove to render cheerful, 
took some of the charm for Mr. Nichols from 
Miss Candy’s curls and crispness. He left the 
house with a load upon him, which grew 
heavier — and lighter — heavier — and lighter, 
with rhythmical regularity, as hope or fear 
predominated. 


[83] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


Nearly a week passed, and still the baby’s life 
hung wavering in the balance; the president 
had come down town every day, looking grayer 
and quieter each morning. 

He came to the office mechanically, and at- 
tended mechanically to the business that had 
to be transacted. He was dulled to a strange 
and abnormal gentleness both there and at 
home. He thanked those who performed the 
usual services for him in the office with 
punctilious politeness. 

The children at home went unreproved by 
him. The chatter of poor little Loulou had 
ceased to irritate, although it occasionally gave 
him a spasm of pain. They were nothing to 
him, mere simulacrums of what had once 
power to please or displease. Even Stan did 
not come in for the usual disapprobation on the 
dirty hands, the slouching walk, or the uncouth 
expressions which characterized him. To Mr. 
Nichols his wife was the only real person in 
the house, and there was but one thought 
between them — the thought of Quintilia, 

The mother worked untiringly, while Miss 
Candy curled her hair, and wrote interminable 
reports, and stood in charming professional 
attitudes when the doctor was present, and sent 
the household individually and collectively for 
belated prescriptions, and bottles that were 
“just out,” and glycerine, and boracic acid, and 
[84] 


In the Reign of Quintilia 

camphorated oil, and disinfectants, and oiled 
silk, and medicine-droppers, and rubber water- 
bags, and absorbent cotton, and whisky, and 
malted milk, and biscuits, and candles, and 
lime-water, and all the various foods so chem- 
ically prepared that they are warranted to be 
retained by the weakest stomach, and of which 
no invalid can ever be persuaded to. swallow 
more than the first teaspoonful. The doctor 
studied Miss Candy's reports — patently com- 
posed from memory — with an imperturbable 
face, and questioned Mrs. Nichols closely aft- 
erwards. Mr. Nichols, as a mortal man, still 
derived a vague satisfaction in her presence, 
although he spent his tired evenings in going 
errands for her; she looked so pretty that he 
always felt as if Quintilia must be better. 

Sometimes he was allowed to sit by the child 
while his wife took a short rest. He knew, 
most humbly, his deficiencies in the sick-room 
— by some ulterior influence when he moved 
fire-irons fell over, bottles broke, papers rattled, 
his shoes made an earthquake, whatever he 
touched creaked. He would sit in a rigidly 
quiet attitude until his wife returned, with his 
head on his hand, watching the little pinched 
face, the half-closed eyes, listening to the breath- 
ing, the rise and fall of the little chest. Oh, 
God, the hours by a sick child ! 

A night came that was long to be remem- 
[85] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


bered in the Nichols household — a night of 
ringing bells and shutting doors and hurried 
running up and down stairs, with the scared 
children in their white night-gowns peeping 
out of the bedroom door after their tearful 
prayers for little sister. 

In the small hours the doctor’s steady tread 
could be heard in the sick-room, or on the land- 
ing where he came to give brief orders. Mr. 
Nichols sat on a couch in the wide hall outside 
the door. Sometimes his wife came from the 
sick-room and sat down by him for a few sec^ 
onds, and they were together in an anguish of 
dreadful love. When she was gone he re- 
mained with his head on his breast . thinking. 

He thought of the years of happiness they 
had had; he thought of the beloved sleeping 
children around them and of honest, clumsy 
Stan, and troublesome, inconsequent Lou- 
lou with special tenderness; he thought of all 
the blessings that had been his. 

It was as if life were brought to a close, and 
he humbly confessed to himself the unfaithful- 
ness of his own part in it, his faults of temper, 
his neglect of opportunities to make others 
happy. He might have been drowning. His 
gaze, brought back to land once more, ques- 
tioned those who passed him in the hall. Miss 
Candy went by once with red eyes, her cap 
pushed to one side, and her pretty hair all out 
[ 86 ] 


In the Reign of Quintilia 

of curl. She did not even see him as she 
passed. 

^Tather dear!” 

He looked up — it was the little eldest daugh- 
ter of the house, Christine. 'Tather dear, I 
can’t go to sleep, and I’ve been lying in bed so 
long!” 

She sat down beside him and slipped her 
hand into his ; her blue eyes had the depth that 
comes from lying awake in darkness. ‘‘I’m 
thinking all the time of baby. Mayn’t I stay 
here with you, father dear? I want to stay 
with you so much.” 

‘'Yes, my darling.” He took the steamer- 
rugs his wife had left beside him and wrapped 
them around the woman-child, yellow braid 
and all, and they stayed there together. Once 
she whispered, 

“You’re praying, too, father dear,” aren’t 
you? I feel that you’re praying;” and he held 
her closer and whispered, “Yes.” By-and-by 
she fell asleep, and he held her still. 

The first streaks of dawn filtered through 
the rooms, strange to those who sat bound in 
darkness and the shadow of death, a household 
prepared only for the night. Then an electric 
current seemed to run through the breathing 
souls in it. 

The doctor came out in the hall and said, 
“She will live!” A door opened farther down 
[87] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


— one flashed to another, ‘‘She will live V The 
message flew from lip to lip, from heart to 
heart. The returning breath of the little ruler 
of the house revivified all within it. The awak- 
ened children ran out for a moment to whisper 
the gladness, the servants stole down the back 
stairs to clatter in the kitchen and make prepa- 
rations for an early breakfast, one could hear 
the cocks crowing, and the sunshine grew 
strong and gathered into a long bar of light. 
Quintilia would live. 

“You may come in and see her for just a 
minute,’’ said Mrs. Nichols to her husband, 
leading him in as one leads the blind. He fell 
on his knees by the bed, awestricken. Was this 
the little rosy darling of his love? But she 
would live — she would live ! As he looked the 
eyes opened recognizingly ; there was a faint 
roguish smile on the beautiful lips, and the 
faintest movement under the bedclothes. 

“She wants you to kiss her foot,” said the 
divining mother. 

“Just hearken to the voice of himself in 
there,” said Ellen, the waitress, as she came 
into the kitchen from the breakfast-room. “He 
says you’re to make some more coflfee, for this 
isn’t fit to be drank. Oh, he’s ragin’! He’s 
sent Loulou from the table for spilling her 
milk, and the boy’s not to play golf for a week 
on account of the dirty hands of him, the 
[ 88 ] 


In the Reign of Quintilia 

poor child ; and he’s got Miss Christine crying 
into the porridge, telling her how she’d oughter 
look after her little sisters better. Oh, he’s the 
holy terror the morn, and herself not down- 
stairs to quaite him ! Take your time with the 
coffee, Ann; sure he’ll murder me when I get 
back.” 

'The pore man !” said the cook indulgently, 
pouring out a fresh installment of the fragrant 
brown liquid into the coffee-pot. " ’Tis the 
way wid ’em all; sure ’tis drunk wid sorrow 
he’s been ! What can ye expict ? The big sobs 
was rindin’ him whin he come from the child’s 
room early, and sure he’s got to take it out of 
somebody. Run you wid the coffee now !” 

''Please don’t go down town to-day,” his 
wife implored him afterwards. "You look so 
horribly tired. Stay at home and rest.” She 
put her arms round him tenderly, feeling that 
now was the opportunity for the happiness of 
mutual thanksgiving; and he unconsciously 
pushed her away from him as he answered, 

"Nonsense ! There’s no reason why I should 
rest.” 

She smothered her disappointment at his re- 
buff. "You won’t be any good at all at the 
office; I know you have a dreadful headache. 
Go upstairs and lie down in the blue room for 
a while, and nobody will disturb you there.” 

"Well !” He gave a grudging assent. 

[89] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


The blue room was white and chilly and un- 
lived in. The stiff pillow-shams rattled down 
off the pillows as he touched them. He liked 
his own room, his own bed. The light glared 
down from the windows. But it was a place 
where he could be let alone, without those eyes 
continually waiting upon him to see how he 
felt. After his debauch of misery all feeling 
was nauseous to him. He lay stiffly on the cold, 
straight, unaccustomed bed, and looked with 
burning eyes at the pictures on the wall. Grad- 
ually the rack in his head slackened a little, his 
eyelids fell shut, he discerned the far-off 
approach of a blessed ease. 

The door opened and his wife came quietly 
in, unselfishly remembering his needs in the 
midst of her own fatigue; she had brought a 
warm coverlet to throw over him. She lowered 
the shades and went softly out again, taking 
with her every atom of the peace that he had 
begun to wrest from a torturing universe. 

The younger children talked in the hall; he 
heard them say, 

‘'Don’t wake father. Hush! Don’t talk so 

loudr 

Then Loulou screamed, and some one came 
and took them away forcibly. 

Ellen, the waitress, knocked at the door to 
say that the man had come for the gas bill, 
and would he pay it? And Miss Candy came 
[90] 


In the Reign of Quintilia 


afterwards professionally with a cup of hot 
broth, which she thought he had better drink. 

Then Mr. Nichols rose up and took a bath 
and shaved and went down town. 

That day was long remembered in the rooms 
of the Electrographic Company. Worried heads 
of departments consulted together; scared 
clerks went hurrying hither and thither; mis- 
takes were routed out, abuses which had the 
sanction of custom sternly reformed, lapses 
from punctuality clinched by new and stringent 
rules. There was a large arrearage of his own 
affairs to be attended to, by which he had lost 
money. 

The intellect of Mr. Nichols revolted fiercely 
against the sentiment to which it had been 
subjugated; he saw every fact at last stripped 
bare. 

As the afternoon waned and the rush of busi- 
ness was over, Mr. Nichols leaned forward 
over his desk and tried to make up his mind 
to get up and go home. He was weary. That 
blessed assurance that he had longed for so un- 
utterably yesterday was his, yet it seemed no 
longer a new bliss, but a fact that he had al- 
ways known. The pendulum had been set 
swinging so hard toward the extreme of grief 
that it could not at once reverse its motion and 
swing toward happiness. He felt indescribably 
worn, indescribably old. There are times in al! 
fQi] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


lives that are safely passed through, but take 
something out of one which no after-delight 
can put back again; some of those delicate 
sinews are broken which make the unthinking 
strength of youth. In his sickness of soul Mr. 
Nichols sought mechanically for some bright 
ray in the gray around him — something to 
bring back his accustomed pleasure in living. 
Quintilia’s recovery — his wife — children — ' 
friends — success — even dinner — all were out 
words. 

In t^iis gloom of effort he half drowsed off ; 
some fleeting wave of a dream showed a spot 
of light before him ; it grew larger and larger, 
and with it a figure grew also-, until it was 
plainly revealed — the figure of the sixth child, 
a lovely rounded thing with starry eyes and 
thistledown curls, dimpling and laughing and 
thrusting a delicious little pink foot in his 
bearded face. He could hear the baby voice 
crying, 

‘Ta-pa, kiss a footie. Kiss a footie, pa-pa V 

A foolish smile overspread the countenance 
of the president of the Electrographic Com- 
pany. In the rapture of love he forgot that 
he had been disloyal even for a moment to 
this Sovereign Joy. 


The Happiest Time 



The Happiest Time 

you coming to church with 
me this morning 

“Well — not this morning, I 

think, petty/’ 

“You said you would/’ 

“Yes, I know I did, but I have a slight cold, 
I don’t think it would be best for me, really, 
petty. I’ve been working pretty hard this 
week.” Mr. Belmore carefully deposited a pile 
of newspapers beside his armchair upon the 
floor of the little library, removing and opening 
the top layer for perusal as he spoke, his eyes 
already glued to the headlines. “A quiet day 
will do me lots of good. I’ll tell you what it 
is : I’ll promise to go with you next Sunday, if 
you say so.” 

“You always promise you’ll go next Sun- 
day.” Mrs. Belmore, a brown-haired, clear- 
eyed young woman in a blue and white spotted 
morning gown, looked doubtfully, yet with 
manifest yielding, at her husband. Mr. Bel- 
more presented the radiantly clean and peace- 
ful aspect of the man who has risen at nine 
o’clock instead of the customary seven, and 
bathed and dressed in the sweet unhurried calm 
that belongs only to the first day of the week, 
[95] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


poking dilatorily among chiffonier drawers, 
discovering hitherto forgotten garments in his 
closet, and leisurely fumbling over a change of 
shirt-studs before coming down to consume the 
breakfast kept waiting for him. 

‘'Of course I know it’s your only day at 
home — ” Mrs. Belmore reverted to her occu- 
pation of deftly setting the chairs in their 
rightful places, and straightening the books on 
the tables. “I suppose I ought to insist on your 
going — when you promised — but still — ” She 
gave a sigh of relinquishment. “I suppose you 
do need the rest,” she added. “We can have a 
nice afternoon together, anyway. You can fin- 
ish reading that story aloud, and we’ll go out 
and take a good look at the garden. I think the 
beans were planted too close under the pear 
tree last year — that was the reason they didn't 
come up right. Edith Barnes and Alan Wilson 
are coming out from town after dinner for the 
rest of the day, but that won’t make any differ- 
ence to us.” 

‘Whatr 

“Now Herbert, how could I help asking 
them? You know the boarding house she and 
her mother live in. Edith never gets a chance 
to see him alone. They’re saving up now to get 
married — they’ve been engaged a year — so he 
can’t spend any more money for theaters and 
things, and they just have to walk and walk the 
[96] 


The Happiest Time 

streets, unless they go visiting, and they’ve been 
almost everywhere, Edith says. She wrote and 
asked me to have them for this Sunday; he’s 
been away for a whole week somewhere up in 
the State. I think it’s pathetic.” In the 
warmth of explanation Mrs. Belmore had un- 
wittingly removed the pile of newspapers from 
the floor to an ottoman at the further end of 
the room. “Edith says she knows it’s the hap- 
piest time of their lives, and she does want to 
get some of the benefit of it, poor girl.” 

“What do they want to be engaged for, any- 
way ?” 

''Herbert! How ridiculous! You are the 
most unreasonable man at times for a sensible 
one that I ever laid my eyes on. Why did we 
want to be engaged ?” 

“That was different.” Mr. Belmore’s tone 
conveyed a permanent satisfaction with his own 
case. “If every woman were like you, petty — 
I never could stand Edith, she’s one of your 
clever girls; there’s something about her that 
always sets my teeth on edge. As for Wilson 
— oh, Wilson’s just a usual kind of a fool, like 
myself. Hello, where are my newspapers — and 
what in thunder makes it so cold? You don’t 
mean to say you’ve got the window open?” 

Mrs. Belmore had a habit of airing the rooms 
in the morning, which her husband approved 
of theoretically, and combated intensely in 
[97] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


practice. After the window was banged shut 
she could hear him rattling at the furnace be- 
low to turn on an extra flow of heat before sei~ 
tling down once more in comfort. Although 
the April sun was bright, there was still a chill 
in the air. 

She looked in upon him, gowned and bonnet- 
ed for church, sweet and placid of mien, fob 
lowed by two little girls, brave in their Sunday 
best, all big hats and ribboned hair, and little 
starchy ruffles showing below their brown 
coats. Mrs. Belmore stooped over her hus- 
band's chair to kiss him good-by. 

“You won't have to talk to Edith and Alan 
at all," she said as if continuing the conversa- 
tion from where they had left off. “All we 
have to do is to let them have the parlor or the 
library. They'll entertain each other." 

“Oh, don't you bother about that. Now go 
ahead or you'll be late, and don't forget to say 
your prayers for me, too. That's right, always 
go to church with your mother, girlies." 

“I wish you were going, too." Mrs. Belmore 
looked at her husband lingeringly. 

' “I wish I were, petty," said Mr. Belmore 
with a prompt mendacity so evidently inspired 
by affection that his wife condoned it at once. 

She thought of him more than once during 
the service with generous satisfaction in his 
comfortable morning. She wished she had 
[98] 


The Happiest Time 

thought it right to remain at home, too, as she 
did sometimes, but there were the children to 
be considered. But she and Herbert would 
have the afternoon together, and take part of 
it to see about planting the garden, a plot twen- 
ty feet square in the rear of the suburban villa. 

The Sunday visit to the garden was almost 
a sacrament. They might look at it on other 
days, but it was only on Sunday, beginning 
with the early spring, that husband and wife 
strolled around the little patch together, first 
planning where to start the summer crop of 
vegetables and afterwards watching the green 
things poking their spikes up through the mold, 
and growing, growing. He did the planting • 
and working in the long light evenings after 
he came home, while she held the papers of 
seeds for him, but it was only on Sunday that 
he could really watch the green things grow, 
and learn to know each separate leaf intimately, 
and count the blossoms on the beans and the 
cucumbers. From the pure pleasure of the first 
radish, through all the various wiltings and 
shrivelings incident to amateur gardening in 
summer deluge and drought, to the triumphant 
survival of tomato plants and cucumber vines, 
running riot over everything in the fall of the 
year, the little garden played its old part as 
paradise to these two, who became more fully 
one in the watching of the miracle of growth. 

[99l 


Little Stories of Married Life 


When they gathered the pears from the little 
tree in the corner of the plot, before the frost, 
and picked the few little green tomatoes that 
remained on the dwindling stems, it was like 
garnering a store of peaceful happiness. Every 
stage of the garden was a romance. Mrs. Bel- 
more could go to church without her husband, 
but to have him survey the garden without her 
would have been the touch beyond. 

It must be horrid, anyway, she thought, to 
have to go every morning into town in those 
smoky cars and crowded ferry-boats; just to 
run into town twice a week tired her out. Now 
he would have finished the paper — now little 
Dorothy would have come in, red cheeked 
from her walk, to kiss daddy before her nap — 
now he must be pottering around among his 
possessions and looking out for her. She knew 
so well how he would look when he came to 
the door to meet her. The sudden sight of 
either one to the other always shed a reflected 
light, like the glow of the sun. It was with a 
feeling of wonder that she marked its disap- 
pearance, after a brief gleam, as he not only 
opened the door, but came out on the piazza to 
greet her, and closed it behind him. 

'They’re in there — Edith and Alan.” He 
pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. ‘T 
thought they weren’t coming until after din- 
ner.” 


[ 100 ] 


The Happiest Time 


‘‘Why, they weren’t/’ 

“Well, they’re in the parlor, just the same. 
Came out over an hour ago. Great Scott, I 
wished I’d gone with you. I’m worn out.” 

“You don’t mean to say you’ve stayed with 
them all the time!” Mrs. Belmore looked 
scandalized. 

“I should say I had; I couldn’t lose ’em. 
Whichever room I went to they followed; at 
least, she did, and he came after. I went from 
pillar to post, I give you my word, petty, but 
Edith had me by the neck; she never let go 
her grip for an instant. They won’t speak to 
each other, you see, only to me. I haven’t had 
a chance to even finish the paper. I’ve had the 
deuce of a time! I don’t know what you are 
going to do about it.” 

“Never mind, it will be all right now,” said 
Mrs. Belmore reassuringly. She pushed past 
him into the parlor where sat a tall, straight 
girl with straight, light brows, a long straight 
nose, and a straight mouth with a droop at the 
corners. In the room beyond, a thick set, dark 
young man with glasses and a nervous expres- 
sion was looking at pictures. It did not require 
a Solomon to discover at a glance how the land 
lay. 

If Mrs. Belmore had counted easily on her 
powers of conciliation she was disappointed this 
time. After the dinner, whereat the conversa- 

[ loi ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


tion was dragged laboriously around four sides 
of a square, except when the two little girls 
made some slight diversion, and the several 
futile attempts when the meal was over to leave 
the lovers alone together, Mrs. Belmore re- 
signed herself, perforce, to the loss of her cher- 
ished afternoon. 

''It’s no use, we’ll have to give up the read- 
ing,” she said to her husband rapidly, in one of 
her comings and goings. "Perhaps later, dear. 
But it’s really dreadful, here we’ve been talk- 
ing of religion and beet-root sugar and small- 
pox, when anyone can see that her heart is 
breaking.” 

' "I think he is getting the worst of it,” said 
Mr. Belmore impartially. 

"Oh, it won’t hurt 

"Well, you’ve given them plenty of oppor- 
tunities to make up.” 

"Yes, but he doesn’t know how.” 

She added in a louder tone, "You take Mr. 
Wilson up to your den for a while, Herbert, 
Ethel and I are going to have a cozy little time 
with the children, aren’t we, dear?” 

"Have a cigar?” said Mr. Belmore as the two 
men seated themselves comfortably in a couple 
of wooden armchairs in the sunny little apart- 
ment hung with a miscellaneous collection of 
guns, swords, and rods, ; the drawing of a 
bloated trout and a dusty pair of antlers. 

[ 102 ] 


The Happiest Time 

‘Thank you, I'm not smoking now," said 
Mr. Wilson with a hungry look at the open box 
on the table beside him. 

“Oh!" said his host genially, “so you're at 
that stage of the game. Well, I've been there 
myself. You have my sympathy. But this 
won't last, you know." 

“Does your wife like smoking?" 

“Loves it," said Mr. Belmore, sinking the 
fact of his official limit to four cigars a day. 
“That is, of course, she thinks it's a dirty hab- 
it, and unhealthy, and all that sort of thing, 
you know, but it doesn't make any difference to 
her — not a pin's worth. Cheer up, old fellow, 
you'll get to this place too." 

“Looks like it," said the other bitterly. 
“Here I haven't seen her for a week — I came 
two hundred miles on purpose yesterday, and 
now she won't even look at me. I don't know 
what's the matter — haven't the least idea — ^and 
I can't get her to tell me. I have to be of¥ to- 
morrow at seven o'clock, too — I call it pretty 
hard lines." 

“Let me see," said Mr. Belmore judicially, 
knitting his brows as if burrowing into the past 
as he smoked. “Perhaps I can help you out. 
What have you been writing to her? Telling 
her all about what you've been doing, and just 
sending your love at the end ? They don't like 
that, you know." 


[ 103] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


Mr. Wilson shook his head. “No, upon my 
soul Tve done nothing but tell her how I — 
how I was looking forward to — oh, hang it, 
Belmore, the letters have been all right, I know 
that.’’ 

“H’m,” said Mr. Belmore, “there’s got to 
be something back of it, you know. Seen any 
girls since you’ve been gone?” 

Mr. Wilson hastened to shake his head more 
emphatically than before. “Not one,” he as- 
severated with the relief of complete innocence. 
“Didn’t even meet a soul I knew, except 
Brower — you remember Dick Brower ? I went 
into a jeweler’s to get my glasses mended and 
found him buying a souvenir spoon for his 
fiancee.” 

“O — o — h!” said Mr. Belmore intelligently, 
“and did you buy a present for Edith?” 

“No, I didn’t. She made me promise not to 
buy anything more for her; she thinks I’m 
spending too much money, and that I ought to 
economize.” 

“And did you tell her about Brower?” 

“Why, of course I did — as we were coming 
out this morning.” 

Mr. Wilson stared blankly at his friend. 

“Chump!” said Mr. Belmore. He bit off 
the end of a new cigar and threw it away. 
“Wilson, my poor fellow, you’re so besotted in 
ignorance that I don’t know how to let the 
[ 104] 


The Happiest Time 


light in on you. A man is a fool by the side of 
his fiancee, anyhow.” 

‘'I don't know what you mean,” said the be- 
wildered Wilson stifHy. ‘7 don't know what 
I'm to do.” 

‘'No, of course you don't — but Edith does — 
you can just trust her for that. A girl always 
knows what a man ought to do — she can give 
him cards and spades and beat him every time.” 

“Then why doesn't she tell me what she 
wants? I asked her to, particularly.” 

“Oh, no ! She'll tell you everything the op- 
posite — that is, half the time. She'll put every 
obstacle possible in your way, to see if you're 
man enough to walk over 'em; that's what she 
wants to find out; if you're man enough to 
have your own way in spite of her; and, of 
course, if you aren't, you're an awful disap- 
pointment.” 

“Are you sure?” said Mr. Wilson deeply, 
after an awestruck pause. “Half the time, you 
say. But how am I to find out when she means 
— I give you my word, Belmore, that I thought 
— I suppose I could have brought her a small 
present, anyway, in spite of what she said; a 
souvenir spoon — but she hates souvenir 
spoons.” 

“You'll have to cipher it out for yourself, old 
man,” said Mr. Belmore. “/ don't set out to 
interpret any woman's moods. I only give you 
[ 105] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


cold, bare facts. But if I were you,’’ he added 
impartially, “I’d go down after a while and 
try and get her alone, you know, and say some- 
thing. You can, if you try.” A swish of skirts 
outside of the open door made Mr. Wilson 
jump forward as Mrs. Belmore came in sight 
with her friend. The latter had her arm around 
the older woman, and her form drooped toward 
her as they passed the two men. The eyes of 
the girl were red, and her lips had a patient 
quiver. Mr. Wilson gave an exclamation and 
sprang forward as she disappeared in the fur- 
ther room. 

It was some hours later that the husband and 
wife met unexpectedly upon the stairs with 
a glad surprise. 

'‘You don’t mean to say it’s you — alone!” he 
whispered. 

"Wait — is she coming up?” They clutched 
each other spasmodically as they listened to the 
sound of a deflecting footstep. There was a 
breathless moment, and then the chords of a 
funeral march boomed forth upon the air. The 
loud pedal was doing its best to supplement 
those long and strenuous fingers. 

The listeners breathed a sigh of relief. 

"He’s gone to the station for a time table,” 
whispered the husband with a delighted grin: 
"though I can stand him all right. We had a 
nice walk with the little girls, after he got tired 
[io6] 


The Happiest Time 

of playing hide and seek. I wished you were 
with us. You must be about used up. How 
are you getting along with her 

'‘Oh, pretty well.’’ She let herself be drawn 
down on the hall window seat at the top of the 
landing. “You see, Edith really feels dread- 
fully, poor girl.” 

“What about ?” 

“Herbert, she isn’t really sure that she loves 
him.” 

“Isn’t sure ! After they’ve been engaged for 
a year!” 

“That’s just it. She says if they had been 
married out of hand, in the first flush of the 
novelty, she wouldn’t have had time, perhaps, 
to have any doubts. But it’s the seeing him all 
the time that’s made her think.” 

“Made her think 

“Whether she loves him or not; whether 
they are really suited. I remember that I used 
to feel that way about you, dear. Oh, you 
know, Herbert, it’s a very serious thing for a 
girl. She says she knows her whole life is at 
stake; she thinks about it all the time.” 

“How about his?” 

“Well, that’s what I said,” admitted Mrs. 
Belmore. “She says that she feels that he is 
so rational and self-poised that she makes little 
difference in his life either way — it has come to 
her all at once. She says his looking at every- 
[ 107] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


thing in a matter-of-fact way just chills her; 
she longs for a whole-souled enthusiasm that 
can sweep everything before it. She feels that 
if they are married she will have to keep up the 
ideal for both of them, and she doesn’t know 
whether she can.” 

‘'No, she can’t,” said Mr. Belmore. 

“She says she could if she loved him 
enough,” pursued Mrs. Belmore. “It’s the if 
that kills her. She says that when she wakes 
up in the morning that she feels as if she’d die 
if she didn’t see him before night, and when 
she docs see him it’s all a dreadful disappoint- 
ment to her; she can’t talk to him at all, she 
feels perfectly hard and stony; then, the mo- 
ment he’s gone, she’s crazy to have him back 
again. She cries herself thin over it.” 

“She’s pretty bony, anyway,” said Mr. Bel- 
more impartially. 

“Even his appearance changes to her. She 
says sometimes he looks like a Greek god, so 
that she could go down on her knees to him, 
and at other times — Once she happened to 
catch a glimpse of him in a horrid red sweater, 
polishing his shoes, and she said she didn’t get 
over it for weeks, he looked positively ordinary, 
like some of the men you see in the trolley 
cars.” 

“Oh, good gracious!” protested Mr. Bel- 
[io8] 


The Happiest Time 


more feebly. ''Oh, good gracious, petty ! This 
is too much.” 

"Hush — don’t laugh so loud — be quiet,” said 
his wife anxiously. 

"If Wilson ever looks like a Greek god to 
her, she’s all right, she loves him — you can tell 
her so for me. Wilson! Here are we sitting 
up here like a pair of lovers, and they — 
Hello!” 

The hall door opened and shut, the piano lid 
closed simultaneously with a bang, and there 
was a swirl of skirts again towards the stair- 
case that scattered the guilty pair on the land- 
ing. The hostess heaved a patient sigh. 

"They shall speak,” said Mrs. Belmore when 
another hour had gone with the situation still 
Unchanged. Her gentle voice had a note of 
determination. "I can’t understand why he 
doesn’t make her. She is literally crying her 
eyes out, because the whole day has been lost. 
Why didn’t you send him into the parlor for 
a book as I told you to, when I came up to take 
care of Dorothy?” 

"He wouldn’t go — he said he wasn’t doing 
the kindergarten act any more. Hang it, I 
don’t blame him. A man objects to being made 
a fool of before people, and he’s tired of it. 
Here he goes off again to-morrow for two 
weeks, and she with no more heart than — ” 

"Where is he now?” asked Mrs. Belmore. 

[ 109] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


''Upstairs in my room, smoking/’ 

''Smoking! 1 thought he’d promised her 
solemnly not to.” 

"Yes, he did; but he says he doesn’t care a— 
red apple; he’s going to have some comfort out 
of the day. I’ve left him with a box of cigars; 
good ones, too. He’s having the time of his 
life.” 

"O — o — h !” said Mrs. Belmore with the rapt 
expression of one who sees beyond the veil. 
When she spoke it was with impressive slow- 
ness. "When you hear me come downstairs 
with Edith and go in the parlor, you wait a 
moment and then bring him down — with his 
cigar — into the library. Do you understand?” 

"No,” said Mr. Belmore. 

"Oh, Herbert ! If she sees him smoking — ! 
There’s no time to lose, for I have to get tea 
to-night. When I call you, leave him and come 
at once, do you hear? Don’t stop a minute — 
just come, before they get a chance to follow.” 

"You bet I’ll come,” said Mr. Belmore, "like 
a bird to its — I will, really, petty.” 

That he nearly knocked her down by his 
wildly tragic rush when she called from the 
back hall — "Herbert, please come at once! I 
can’t turn off the water,” was a mere detail — 
they clung to each other in silent laughter, be- 
hind the enshrouding portieres, not daring to 
move. The footfall of the deserted Edith was 
[no] 


The Happiest Time 


heard advancing from the front room to the 
library, and her clear and solemn voice, as of 
one actuated only by the lofty dictates of duty, 
penetrated distinctly to the listeners. 

“Alan Wilson, is it possible that you are 
smoking? Have you broken your promised 
word 

'‘Well, they’re at it, at last,” said Mr. Bel- 
more, relapsing into a chair in the kitchen with 
a sigh of relief, and drawing a folded news- 
paper from his pocket. “I wouldn’t be in his 
shoes for a farm.” 

“Oh, it will be all right now,” said Mrs. Bel- 
more serenely. She added with some irrele- 
vancy, “I’ve left the children to undress each 
other; they’ve been so good. It’s been such a 
different day, though, from what we had 
planned.” 

“It’s too bad that you have to get the tea.” 

“Oh, I don’t mind that a bit.” 

She had tucked up the silken skirt of her 
gown and was deftly measuring out coffee — 
after the swift, preliminary shaking of the fire 
with which every woman takes possession of a 
kitchen — pouring the water into the coffee pot 
from the steaming kettle, and then vibrating 
between the kitchen closet and the butler’s pan- 
try with the quick, capable movements of one 
who knows her ground thoroughly. “Really, 
it isn’t any trouble. Margaret leaves half of 

[III] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


the things ready, you know. If you’ll just lift 
down that dish of salad for me — and the cold 
chicken is beside it. I hate to ask you to get 
up, but — Thank you. How good the coffee 
smells! I know you always like the coffee I 
make.” 

'‘You bet I do,” said Mr. Belmore with fer- 
vor. “Say, petty, you don’t think you could 
come out now and take a look at the garden? 
I’m almost sure the peas are beginning to 
show.” 

“No, I’m afraid there isn’t time. We’ll have 
to give it up for this Sunday.” She paused 
for a great effort. “If you’d like to go by 
yourself, dear — ” 

“Wouldn’t you mind?” 

She paused again, looking at him with her 
clear-eyed seriousness. 

“I don’t think I mind now, but I might — 
afterwards.” 

If he had hesitated, it was for a hardly ap- 
preciable second. “And I don’t want to go,” 
he protested stoutly, “it wouldn’t be the same 
thing at all without you.” 

“Everything is ready now,” said his wife. 

“Though I do hate to disturb Edith and Alan. 
I’ll just run up and hear the children say their 
prayers before I put those things on the table. 
If you would just take a look at the furnace — ” 

[ II2] 


The Happiest Time 


it was the sentence Mr. Belmore had been 
dreading — ‘'and then you can come up and kiss 
the children good night.’’ 

Mr. Belmore, on his way up from stoking, 
caught a glimpse projected from the parlor mir- 
ror through an aperture in the doorway which 
the portieres had left uncovered. The reflec- 
tion was of a girl, with tear-stained face and 
closed eyes, her head upon a young man’s 
shoulder, while his lips were touchingly pressed 
to her hair. The picture might have been 
called “After the Storm,” the wreckage was so 
plainly apparent. As Mr. Belmore turned 
after ascending the flight of stairs he came full 
in sight of another picture, spread out to view 
in the room at the end of the hall. He stood 
unseen in the shadow regarding it. 

His wife sat in a low chair near one of the 
two white beds; little Dorothy’s crib was in 
their room, beyond. The three children were 
perched on the foot of the nearest bed, white- 
gowned, with rosy faces and neatly brushed 
hair. While he looked, the youngest child gave 
a birdlike flutter and jump, and lighted on the 
floor, falling on her knees, with her bowed head 
in the mother’s lap, her hands upraised. As she 
finished the murmured prayer, helped by the 
tender mother-voice, she rose and stood to one 
side, in infantine seriousness, while the next 
one spread her white plumes for the same flight, 
[113] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


waiting afterwards in reverent line with the 
first as the third hovered down. 

It was plain to see from the mother's face 
that she had striven to put all earthly thoughts 
aside in the performance of this sacred office of 
ministering to innocence ; her eyes must be holy 
when her children's looked up at her on their 
way to God. 

This was the little inner chapel, the Sanctu- 
ary of Home, where she was priestess by divine 
right. It would have been an indifferent man, 
indeed, who had not fallen upon his knees in 
spirit, in company with this little household of 
faith, in mute recognition of the love and peace 
and order that crowned his days. 

He kissed the laughing children as they 
clung to him, before she turned down the light. 
A\ffien she came out of the room he was wait- 
ing for her. He put his arm around her as he 
said, with the darling tenderness that made her 
life, 

‘‘Come along, old sweetness. We've got to 
go down and stir up those lunatics again. Call 
that 'Iht happiest time of your life !' We know 
better than that, don't we, petty? I'll tell you 
what it is : I'll go to church with you next Sun- 
day, if you say so!" 


[114] 


V 

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In the Married Quarters 


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In the Married Quarters 

Q R. BROOKTON rivers watched 

the spark at the end of his cigar as 
he held the short stub between his 
thumb and forefinger. It was going out. 
While he had had that cigar to smoke his mind 
had been at rest, for he knew tliat he was going 
to sit in that particular angle in the piazza until 
he finished it, which would be about half past 
eight. After that — what ? 

He threw away the cigar and leaned medi- 
tatively forward to catch a glimpse of the moon 
as it rose over the patch of straggling woods 
next to the Queen Anne cottage opposite him. 
It showed a deserted piazza, and a man and his 
wife and two small children walking past it. 
The man walked with the heavy, shuffling steps 
of a laborer, and the woman, in a white shirt- 
waist and a dragging skirt, held one child by 
the hand, while the other, in tiny trousers, tod- 
dled bow-leggedly behind. As they vanished 
down the street, two silent men on bicycles sped 
past, their little lamps twinkling in the shadows; 
then half a dozen more, laughing and calling to 
each other, then a swiftly driven buggy that 
sent the dust flying up on the vines that were 
already laden with it. The prevailing smell of 
fii7l 


Little Stories of Married Life 


the humid night was of damp weeds. It was 
also very hot. 

There were no lights in the house opposite, 
nor in the one next to it, or in the one next to 
that, nor were there any, as he knew without 
seeing, in either of the houses next to his own. 
From farther down the street came the sound 
of a jangling piano, obstructed intermittently 
by the loud, unvaried barking of a melancholy 
dog. From nearer by the persistent wail of a 
very young infant, protesting already against 
existence in such a hot world, became more and 
more unbearable each instant. Mr. Rivers ab- 
sent-mindedly killed three feasting mosquitoes 
at a blow, and rose to his feet with determina- 
tion. He could stay here no longer. Should 
he go out, or retire to his room in the doubtful 
comfort of extreme negligee, and read? 

It will, of course, be evident to the meanest 
suburban intelligence that the month was Au- 
gust, and that Mrs. Rivers was away, as were 
most of her immediate neighbors, enjoying a 
holiday by either mountains or seashore. Riv- 
ers could see in imagination how glorious this 
moonlight became as the waves rolled into its 
path and broke there on the wet sands into a 
delicious rush and swirl of silvery sparkling 
foam. He could smell the very perfume of the 
sea, and feel the cold breath that the water ex- 
hales with one’s face close down by it, no mat- 

[ii8] 


In the Married Quarters 


ter how warm the night. It had been a pretty 
bad day in town. He was glad, very glad, that 
Elizabeth had the change. She needed it. He 
had said this stoutly to himself many times in 
the last six weeks, and knew that it was true. 
She had protested against going, and only 
yielded at last for the children’s sake and in 
wifely obedience to lawful masculine author- 
ity. He had insisted on sleeping in the house 
alone, in defiance of her pleading, alleging an 
affinity for his own bed, his own belongings, 
and an individual bath tub. A woman came 
once a week to sweep and straighten up the 
house. He had repeatedly declared there would 
be really nothing to do after business hours but 
to go around and enjoy himself. He had made 
her almost envious of these prospective joys. 
He would take little trips to Manhattan Beach 
with “the boys” and go* to Bronxville to see 
Tom Westfield, as he had been meaning to for 
five years, and visit the roof garden with the 
Danas, who were on from St. Louis, and take 
dinner at the Cafe Ruritania. On the between 
nights he would visit the neighbors. All these 
things he had done, more or less disappointing- 
ly, but what should he do to-night ? 

“I beg your pardon. Rivers, but have you 
any paregoric in the house? We’ve got to get 
something to quiet the baby.” 

A tall, thin, wearied-looking young man had 
[ 119] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


come up the steps, hidden by the vines in which 
dwellers in a mosquito country are wont to 
picturesquely embower themselves, defiant of 
results. 

'‘Why, how are you, Parker ?’’ said Rivers 
cordially. “Paregoric is it that you want? 
Come inside, and we’ll have a look for it, old 
man.” He led the way, scratching matches as 
he went to relieve the darkness, dropping 
them on the floor as they went out, and finally 
lighting the gas in the butler’s pantry. 

“My wife keeps the medicines on the top 
shelf here to be out of the way of the children,” 
he explained. “I don’t know about the pare- 
goric, though. I seem to remember that she 
didn’t believe much in using it for babies.” 

“We’ve had a fight with the nurse about it,” 
said the other man, gnawing at a very light 
mustache as he leaned against the door, “but 
Great Scott, Rivers, we’ve got to do something. 
I would have murdered anybody whose child 
cried like this one. We’ve been complained of 
as it is. That’s paregoric, isn’t it?” 

“It was, but the bottle’s empty,” said Riv- 
ers, who was standing on the rung of a chair, 
holding out a vial now and then from an inner 
recess to read the name on ito “That’s another 
empty bottle — and here’s another empty bottle 
— and, this is — another. Bottle of sewing 

machine oil. Prescription for neuralgia, 178, 
[120] 


In the Married Quarters 


902, empty. Bottle of glycerine — confound the 
thing ! the cork was out of it ; get my handker- 
chief for me out of my pocket, will you ? Pre- 
scription for hair tonic; empty bottle — ^another 
empty prescription bottle — dregs of cough med- 
icine. What in thunder does Bess want with 
all these empty bottles? Pm awfully sorry, 
Parker, but we don’t seem to have the stuff 
you want, or any other, for that matter.” 

‘‘Never mind,” said Parker. “Pll ride down 
to the village and get some. Pd have gone 
there first, but the tire of my wheel wants blow- 
ing up.” 

“Pd lend you my wheel, but it’s at the shop,” 
called Rivers as they disappeared out of the 
door. 

He put the bottles back, upsetting, as he did 
so, a package of some white powder, out of 
which ran three cockroaches. As he stooped 
to gather it up again in the paper he disturbed 
a half-eaten peach which he remembered leav- 
ing there the night before, and a small colony 
of ants that had made their dwelling in it scut- 
tled cheerily around. He uttered an exclama- 
tion of disgust, and shut the door of the butler’s 
pantry upon them. The whole house seemed 
given up to a plague of insects, utterly un- 
known in the reign of its careful mistress. In 
spite of screens, small stinging mosquitoes 
whizzed out from everything he touched ; spi- 
[ 121 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


ders hung down from webs in the ceiling, and a 
moth had flown from his closet that very morn- 
ing. He kept the blinds and windows closed 
while he was away all day; he had begun by 
leaving them open, but a slanting shower had 
made havoc in his absence and also flooded the 
cellar through the open cellar door. It had not 
dried up since, and he was sure that there were 
fleas down there. 

There was a deadly hot damp and silence in 
the dining room and parlor as he came through 
them, and the same unnatural atmosphere in 
the rooms above as he drearily invaded them 
for a clean collar. Every place was shut up 
and in order; the tops of the dressing tables 
even were bare save for the clean towel laid 
over each. His own room was in an ugly, di- 
sheveled confusion, and though his windows 
were open, no air came through the wire 
screens. He opened a closet door inadvertently, 
and the sight of a pink kimono of his wife’s, 
and the hats of the two little boys hanging up 
neatly beside it, emphasized his solitude. His 
latent idea of spending the rest of the evening 
at home was gone from him — he felt that he 
could not get out of this accursed house quickly 
enough, although he had not made up his mind 
where to go; he did not feel up to cheering the 
sick man in the next street, or equal to a gentle 
literary conversation with the two elderly ladies 
[ 122 J 


In the Married Quarters 


beyond who had known his mother. He want- 
ed to go somewhere where he could smoke and 
have some pleasing light drink for refreshment, 
and be cheered and amused himself. 

The Callenders ! If he only had his wheel — 
it was nine o’clock now, and the place was away 
over on the other side of town. Never mind, 
he would go, and chance their being at home 
and out of bed when he got there. Anything to 
get away from this loathsome place, although 
coming back to it again seemed suddenly an 
impossible horror. He wondered if he were 
getting ill. The night before — 

As he walked, the shadows of the moonlight 
lengthened his long legs, and their dragging 
strides. His face, with its short brown beard 
and the hollows under his dark eyes, was bent 
forward. He figured out anew the income 
there would be from his insurance money, and 
how it might be supplemented for Bess and the 
children. Clearly, he would have to earn more 
before he died. And oh, the burden, the bur- 
den, the burden was his ! The thought leaped 
out like a visible thing. Her sweet presence, 
her curling hair, her dimples, her loving femi- 
nine inconsequence, with the innocent, laugh- 
ing faces of the little boys, overlaid the daily 
care for him, but with these appointed Tighten- 
ers of Life away it loomed up into a hideously 
exaggerated specter that seemed to have always 
[ 123] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


had its hand upon his fearsome heart, and only 
pressed a little closer upon him now in this hot 
windless night. Even his wilted collar partook 
of the tragic; he might as well have kept on the 
first one. 

‘‘Hello! Hello! Where are you going? 
This is the place.” A shout of laughter accom- 
panied the words. “Come up, brother, weVe 
been waiting for you !” 

He looked up to see that he was in front of 
Callender’s house, and that the piazza, a large 
square end of which was screened off into a 
room, held a company in jovial mood, under 
moonlight as bright as day. The women were 
in white, with half bare neck and arms, rocking 
and fanning themselves, and the men in tennis 
shirts and belts, two of them smoking pipes, 
and the other a cigar. A tray, holding a 
large crystal bowl and glasses, stood on a bam- 
boo table at one side, half shielded by jars of 
palms whose spiked shadows carpeted the floor 
and projected themselves across the white dress 
and arms of Mrs. Callender, while she held the 
door open with one hand, and half welcomed, 
half dragged him in with the other, amid a 
chorus of voices, 

“Come in, come in, you’re one of us.” 

“If you let a mosquito in — Take that chair 
by Mrs. Weir if y6u feel up to it; she wants to 
be entertained.” 


[ 124] 


In the Married Quarters 


''I feel up to anything — now/’ said Rivers, 
taking with alacrity the seat allotted to him, 
after shaking hands with pretty Mrs. Waring, 
who lived next door, and her cousin, Mrs. 
Weir. '‘Same old crowd, I see.” 

The laughter broke out anew as his wander- 
ing eyes took tally of the group, and he said, 
"Where’s Callender? and Weir? What’s the 
joke?” 

"Oh, don’t ask for any woman’s husband or 
any man’s wife,” said Mrs. Callender despair- 
ingly, with her graceful figure reclining back in 
the low chair. "Can’t you see that we’re all de- 
tached ?” Her charming smile suddenly broke 
forth. "It’s really too absurd.” 

"No!” said Rivers, a light dawning on him. 
"Nichols, you don’t mean that you are on 
the waiting list too?” 

Mr. Nichols, a large man with a grizzled 
head, nodded and helped himself to the con- 
tents of the suggestive bowl. "The missus and 
the kids went off last week ; I’m detained for a 
while longer. As for Callender; he got a sum- 
mons from the company, and he’s half way to 
Chicago by this time, I hope. I came over on 
purpose to tell his last words to his wife, who 
didn’t want them.” 

"Ned had already brought them,” said Mrs. 
Callender, turning to the tall, quiet man of the 
cigar, Mr. Atwood, who was her brother. "It’s 
[ 125] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


such a mercy that he happened to come on, or 
rd have been here all alone/’ 

“Looks like it,” said Mr. Porter, a stout fair 
gentleman with a cool gray eye, a bald head, 
and a gurgling laugh. “What do you think. 
Rivers, these girls here” — he waved his hand — 
“had been counting on seeing the whole lot of 
us to-night, and brewed that lemonade on pur- 
pose.” 

“Everyone has come now but the Martin- 
dales,” said Mrs. Weir, a little woman with 
loosely piled dark hair, and a gentle, winning 
voice, occasionally diversified with a surprising 
shriek of laughter. 

“The Martindales ! Why, they only re- 
turned this evening — I met them on the boat,” 
said Rivers. 

“Yes, we know that, but one of them will be 
over here just the same,” said Mrs. Callender 
placidly. “They’ll want to see what we’re do- 
ing. Do somebody pay a little attention to 
Mrs. Waring; she hasn’t said a word for half 
an hour. I believe she’s hoping that Henry’ll 
be too homesick to stay away.” 

“Not quite,” said Mrs. Waring with a little 
tremble of her lower lip. 

“Nice, kind little woman you are,” said Por- 
ter severely. “Want to enjoy yourself think- 
ing how unhappy Waring is. Well, Pm glad 
[ 126] 


In the Married Quarters 


he went, and I hope he'll stay until he's well; 
if any man needed a change, he did." 

“He would have taken me with him if I could 
have left the children," murmured Mrs. War- 
ing. 

“Yes, the children win every time," said 
Porter with easy philosophy. “You think 
you're important, my brothers, until you're con- 
fronted with your own offspring, and then 
you're not in it." 

“I don't see," said Mr. Nichols, filling his 
pipe again, “why a man's family should stay 
in town and broil because he has to. It would- 
n't be any satisfaction to me^ I know that. 
My little girls write to me every day." 

“I remember," said Rivers, leaning forward, 
“once when Bess and I took a trip together we 
had to come home just when the fishing was at 
its height, because she imagined what it would 
be like if a menagerie broke loose and a tiger 
got at little Brook when he was asleep in his 
crib. She said she knew it was perfectly ab- 
surd, but she couldn't stand it a moment longer. 
So we came home." 

He laughed tenderly at the reminiscence, and 
the other men laughed with him, but the wom- 
en, even Mrs. Callender, who had no children, 
were serious, and Mrs. Weir said, as if speak- 
ing for the rest, 

“Yes, one does feel that way sometimes." 

[ 127] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


The men looked at each other and nodded, 
as in the presence of something known of old, 
something to be smiled at, and yet reverenced. 
The fierce maternal impulses’ of his wife were 
divine to Rivers, he loved her the more for her 
foolishness; it seemed fitting, and all he could 
expect, that the children should be her passion, 
as she was his. If he had once dreamed that it 
would be otherwise, he knew better now. 
Women were to be taken care of and loved for 
their very limitations, even if one bore a little 
sense of loss and soreness forever in one’s own 
heart. What could they know ? 

‘'Why don’t you take a vacation, Mr. Riv- 
ers?” asked Mrs. Weir later as the others had 
fallen into general conversation, “You look as 
if you needed it. Mr. Nichols says it was dread- 
ful in town to-day; forty-seven heat prostra- 
tions.” 

“Oh, I can’t get off,” said Rivers with un- 
conscious weariness in his voice. “It makes an 
awful lot of difference when you’re running 
the business yourself. If I were working for 
somebody else I’d take my little two weeks the 
way my own clerks do, without caring a hang 
what became of the concern in my absence. I 
thought I was going to get up to Maine over 
the Fourth, and after all I couldn’t leave in 
time. It’s quite a journey, you know. Bess 
and the boys were as disappointed as I was,” 
[128] 


In the Married Quarters 


he added conscientiously. ‘‘But they’re getting 
along finely. Sam and Jack are learning to 
swim, she says — pretty good for little shavers 
of five and six ! They’re as brown as Indians. 
She says — ” he began to laugh as he repeated 
confidentially some anecdotes of their prowess 
to which Mrs. Weir apparently listened with 
the deeply interested attention that is balm to 
the family exile, only asking him after a while 
irrelevantly, as he pushed back the hair from 
his forehead, 

“How did you get that ugly cut on your tem- 
ple?” 

Even in the moonlight she could see his 
face flush. 

“Oh, come. Rivers,” said Atwood, who was 
passing, “make up some story, for the credit 
of mankind.” 

“Then you might as well have the truth, I 
suppose,” said Rivers, laughing, yet embar- 
rassed. “It’s really nothing, though; I felt diz- 
zy and queer when I went to bed last night. I 
suppose it was just the heat, and I have had a 
good deal to carry in a business way lately. I 
found myself at daylight this morning lying on 
the floor with my head by the edge of the bu- 
reau, and I don’t know in the least how I got 
there. I have a faint memory that I started to 
go for some water. I’m all right to-day, 
though ; it hasn’t bothered me a bit.^^ 

[129] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


‘'No, of course not,’’ said Mrs. Weir encour- 
agingly. “And you don't mind staying 
alone?" she dropped her voice. 

“Oh, no, not at all. Only — I don’t mind tell- 
ing you — " he looked at her with strange eyes 
— “I hate the house! It's got all the plagues of 
Egypt in it. And all the hours I've spent alone 
there are shut up in it too. I know just how 
it's going to be when I open that front door and 
walk in." 

“Stay here to-night," said Mrs. Weir 
smoothly. “Stay here with Mr. Atwood; 
Mrs. Callender will be delighted to have you." 

“Oh, I can't, possibly," said Rivers with de- 
cision. “I didn't even lock the front door when 
I came away. I only remembered it a moment 
ago. And I won't really mind a bit after I'm 
once back there — it's only the plunge. You're 
awfully good to me, Mrs. Weir," he added 
gratefully; but he wanted his wife — he did not 
want to be confidential with anyone but her. 
No matter what enjoyment he had in this brief 
hour, it was bound to fail him at the end. One 
of the dearest pleasures of married life is the 
going home together after the outside pleas- 
uring is over. 

As they all trooped into the dining-room for 
the crabs and salad Mrs. Callender told of as 
in the ice-box, the figure of Elizabeth in her 
pink kimono seemed to weave in and out among 
[ 130] 


In the Married Quarters 


the others, but in another moment he was 
laughing and talking uproariously with the 
men, while the women, on Mrs. Callender’s as- 
sertion that the servants were in bed, tucked up 
their gowns and descended the cellar stairs for 
the provisions, refusing ail masculine assist- 
ance. 

think it’s an eternal shame,” said Mrs. 
Callender as the three held an excited con- 
clave in cellared seclusion by the open refrig- 
erator. “It’s just as Celeste says, he’s ill — any- 
one can see it. Why, he starts whenever he’s 
spoken to. He told Mr. Callender the other 
day that he’d been horribly worried about busi- 
ness. He’s a nervous kind of a fellow, and he 
takes everything too hard. He ought not to be 
left alone in this way.” 

“I think somebody ought to write to her/* 
said Mrs. Waring solemnly, resting the dish of 
salad on the top of the ice-box. “I think it’s 
perfectly heartless of her to go on enjoying her- 
self when he’s ill.” 

“She doesn’t know it,” interrupted Mrs. Cal- 
lender with rare justice. 

“That’s what I say, somebody ought to tell 
her. She never seems to think about anything 
but herself, though — or the children, or clothes. 
If I thought that Henry — but I’d never leave 
him this way, never; I wouldn’t have a bit 
[ 131 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 

of comfort. He's so devoted to his home, just 
like Mr. Rivers." 

‘■Do you know — I have a dreadful feeling 
that something is going to happen to him to- 
night ?" 

“If you had heard him talk — " said Mrs. 
Weir with tragic impressiveness. 

The three women looked at each other si- 
lently. 

“Are we to have anything to eat to-night, or 
are you girls going to talk until morning?" 
came the steady tones of Porter from the head 
of the stairs. “It's after eleven now." 

“Goodness!" said Mrs. Callender, hastily 
completing her preparations. “Yes! we're 
coming. You can send Ned down now to crack 
some more ice, and then we'll be ready." 

But she turned to say, “I think someone 
ought to go home with him." 

“This is what I call comfort," said Porter 
as they sat hilariously around the Flemish oak 
table, eating the cool viands and drinking anew 
from the iced bowl, a lacy square of white linen 
and a glass vase of scarlet nasturtiums grac- 
ing the center of the board. “Clear, clear com- 
fort !" 

“I feel at peace with all mankind — even with 
Atwood, who believes in an imperial policy." 

“Hush," said Mrs. Callender, “who is that 
on the piazza?" 


In the Married Quarters 


The door opened, a head was thrust in, and 
a shout arose. 

“Martindale! Martindale, by all that's 
holy! Come in, we're expecting you." 

‘‘That's mighty good of you," said the in- 
truder, who seemed to be all red hair and smiles. 
“All the same, you don't seem to have left me 
much of anything to eat." He drew up a chair 
to the table and sat down. 

“Where's your wife?" asked Mrs. Weir. 

“Oh, she had a headache this evening. I 
went out for a ride, and when I came back I 
saw you were on deck over here, so I thought 
I'd look in and see what was up." He stopped, 
oblivious of the renewed laughter, and stared 
at Rivers. “Why, when did you get here? I 
saw a light in your house ten minutes ago. I 
nearly dropped in on you." 

“A light in my house!" exclaimed Rivers. 
He rose, and the others instinctively rose also, 
with startled glances at each other. 

“Perhaps your family has come home," sug- 
gested Mrs. Waring. 

Rivers shook his head. “No, I had a letter 
from Bess to-day saying she had taken the 
rooms for two weeks more. It might have been 
Parker, but I don't think so. Are you sure 
you saw a light?" 

“On the lower floor," asseverated Martin- 
[ 133] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


dale. ‘'Was the door locked when you came 
out?’’ 

“No.” • 

“All right,” said Atwood briskly. “Porter 
and I’ll go back with you, Rivers. No, we 
don’t need you, Nichols, you’re tired. Come 
upstairs and choose from Callender’s arsenal.” 

“Each of those women begged me secretly 
not to let him get shot,” whispered Porter to 
his companion as they set off at a jog trot 
down the street. Rivers a little ahead. “I sup- 
pose they could sing our requiems with pleas- 
ure.” , 

“I know. They pounded it into me, too. 
They’ve got some kind of an idea between ’em 
that he’s coming to harm. Anything for an 
excitement. We’ll get ahead of him when 
we’re a little nearer to the house.” 

It looked very dark and still as they reached 
it. The moon had set, and the patch of strag- 
gling woods stretched out weird and formless. 
The piano, the infant, the yelping dog had 
given place to an oppressive silence save for the 
dismal chirping of insects and the shuddering 
of a train of coal cars as it backed far off down 
the track. “There is no light now,” said Por- 
ter. 

The three wefe drawn up in a line outside 
the house, and even while he spoke the gas 
flared up bright in the second story. The edge 
[ 134] 


In the Married Quarters 


of a shadow wavered toward the back of the 
room; then it came forward and disappeared. 
The next moment the shade of the front win- 
dow was partly drawn up and pulled down 
again by a round white arm, half clad in the 
loose sleeve of a pink kimono. 

RIVERS sat in the big wicker chair with 
jfv his arms around his little wife. Her 
head, with its light curls, lay on his shoulder, 
and both of her hands held one of his large 
ones as she talked. 

''You are sure you do not mind my coming 
in this way?'’ 

"No. No, my Betsy, I do not mind.” He 
touched his lips to her forehead, and smoothed 
the folds of her pink gown with the strong, 
unnecessarily firm touch of a man. "But 
where are the boys?” 

"I left them with Alice” — Alice was her 
sister — "for another week. I couldn't bring 
them back in this hot weather.” 

"Left them with Alice!” 

"Yes, don't talk about it.” She colored nerv- 
ously and then went on. "I know they're all 
right, but if I think about it too much I'll 
get silly — as I did about you. But, of course, 
it's really different with them, for they have 
someone to look after them, and Alice will tel- 
egraph every day.” 


Little Stories of Married Life 


‘'How did you get silly about me?” 

She clasped and unclasped his hand. “I 
don’t know. Yes, I do. It was worse than the 
time I thought of little Brook and the tiger. I 
kept imagining and imagining dreadful things. 
Last night I thought you were^ — dead. I saw 
you fallen on the floor.” Her voice dropped 
to a note of horror, and her eyes grew dark as 
they stared at him. “Where did you get that 
cut on your forehead ? Were you ill last night ? 
Did you have a fall ?” 

He nodded, gazing steadily at her. 

“Lm all right now.” 

“Oh,” she said with a long, shivering breath, 
and hid her face on his shoulder. Presently 
she fell to kissing his hand, holding it tight 
when he strove to draw it away. Then she 
went on in a smothered tone, with a little,pause 
between each sentence, 

“I got here at ten o’clock. I thought you’d 
never come home. Of course, I knew you were 
at the Callenders’. I went to work and cleared 
up the butler’s pantry, or I couldn’t have slept 
here! The house is in a dreadful condition.” 

“Yes. Don’t you care.” 

“I don’t. I’ll have an army here cleaning 
to-morrow. But oh, Brookton — ” she broke 
ofif suddenly — “don’t send me away again!” 
There was a new, passionate ring in her voice. 
''Never send me away again. I’ve been wild, 
[136] 


In the Married Quarters 


wild, wild for you ! Promise never to send me 
away again. Let me stay with you always — 
whatever happens — like this — until we die!’’ 
A sob caught her by the throat. 

The strong and tender clasp of his arms an- 
swered her — her trembling ceased. After a 
silence, he said gently, 

'T’m going downstairs now to lock up.” 

She rose, flushing under his smiling eyes as 
he held her ofif at arm’s length to say, 

‘Tt seems to me you’ve reached a high pitch 
of romance after seven years, Mrs. Rivers I” 
^^Ah, don’t, don’t,” she deprecated. She 
raised her drooping head and flashed a reckless 
glance at him, half mirthful, half tragic. 

''Oh, it’s dreadful to care so much for any 
man ! Goodness knows what I’ll get to in seven 
years more!” 


[ 137] 


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Mrs. Atwood’s Outer Raiment 


f 139] 



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Mrs. Atwood’s Outer Raiment 

^r^OW much will a new suit cost, Jo?'’ 
Mr. Atwood held his fingers re- 
flectively on the rubber band of his 
pocketbook as he asked the question, and 
glanced as he did so at the round brunette face 
of his wife, which had suddenly become all 
flush and sparkle. 

^‘Oh, Edward!" 

^‘Well?" 

'‘You oughtn't to give me the money for it 
now — you really oughtn't. There are so many 
calls on you at this season of the year, I don't 
see how we can meet them as it is. The second 
quarter of Josephine's music lessons begins 
next month, and the dancing school bill comes 
in too — besides the coal. Everything just piles 
in before Christmas. I meant to have saved 
the money, for a coat at any rate, this summer 
out of my allowance, but I was obliged to fit Jo- 
sephine out from head to foot — she grows so 
fast, she takes as much for a dress as I do. But 
it doesn't make any difference — I can do very 
well for a while with what I have — really!" 

"How about the Washington trip with me 
next month ? I thought you said you couldn't 
go anywhere without a new suit ?" 

[ 141 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


‘‘Well, I can’t, but—’’ 

“That settles it.” 

Mr. Atwood pulled off the rubber band from 
the pocketbook and laid it on the table before 
him, as he extracted a roll of bills and began to 
count them. It was a shabby article, worn 
brown at the edges, but it had been made of 
handsome leather to begin with, and still held 
together in spite of many years of service. Mrs. 
Atwood would hardly have known her husband 
without that pocketbook. It represented in its 
way the heart of a kind and generous man, al- 
ways ready to do his utmost in help of the fam- 
ily needs, without complaint or caviling. 

His wife always experienced mingled feel- 
ings when that leather receptacle appeared — a 
quick and blessed relief and a sharp wince, as if 
it were really his heart’s blood that she was tak- 
ing. Her fervent imagination was perennially 
ready to picture unknown depths of stress. 

He paid no attention now to her inarticulate 
murmur of protest; but asked, in a business-like 
way, 

“How much will it take?” 

“I could get the material for a dollar a 
yard — ” Mrs. Atwood sat with her hands 
clasped and her eyes looking off into space, 
feeling the words wrung from her — “I could 
get it for a dollar a yard, but I suppose it ought 
to be heavier weight for the winter.” 

[ 142] 


Mrs. Atwood’s Outer Raiment 


‘‘Have it warm enough, whatever else you 
do,’’ interrupted her husband. 

“It would take seven yards, or I might get 
along with six and a half, it depends on the 
width. It’s the linings that make it mount up 
to so much, and the making. You can get a 
suit made for ten dollars; Cynthia Callender 
did, and hers looks well, but Mrs. Nichols went 
to the same place, and — ” 

“Will thirty dollars be enough?” asked Mr. 
Atwood with masculine directness, seeking for 
some tangible fact. 

“Oh, yes. I’m sure it will be, I — ” 

“Then here’s fifty,” said Mr. Atwood. He 
counted out five tens and pushed them over to 
her. “Get a good suit while you’re about it, 

Jo.” 

“Oh, Edward. I don’t want — ” 

“Make her take it,” said a girl of sixteen, 
rising from the corner where she had been sit- 
ting with a book in her hand, a very tall and 
thin and pretty girl, brunette like her mother, 
with a long black braid that hung down her 
back. She came forward and threw her arm 
around her mother’s neck, bending protecting- 
ly over her. “Make her take it, papa. She 
buys everything for me and the boys, and goes 
without herself, so that I’m ashamed to walk 
out in the street with her; it makes me look so 
horrid to be all dressed up when she wears that 
[ 143 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


old spring jacket. When it's cold she puts a 
cape over it. I wish you'd see that cape ! She's 
had it since the year one. She doesn't dare 
wear it when she goes out with you, she just 
shivers." 

''Hush, hush, Josephine," said the mother 
embarrassed, yet laughing, as her husband lifted 
his shaggy eyebrows at her in mock severity. 
"You needn't say any more, either of you. I'll 
take the money." She paused impressively, 
and then gently pushed the girl aside and went 
over and kissed her husband. 

"If I were only as good a manager as some 
people! I don't know what's the matter with 
me. I try, and I try, but — " 

"Yes, yes, I know," said the husband. "All 
I ask now is that you spend this money on 
yourself; it's not for other needs. Remember! 
You are to spend it all on yourself." 

"Yes, I will," said Mrs. Atwood, with the 
guilty thrill of the perjured at the very moment 
of her promise. She knew very well that some 
of it would have to be spent for other needs. 
She had but fifty cents left of her allowance to 
last her until the end of the month, five long 
days away. No one but the mother of a family 
of moderate means realizes what the demand 
for pads, pencils, shoestrings, lunches, postage 
stamps, hair ribbons, medicines, mended shoes, 
and such like can amount to in that short time. 
[ 144] 


Mrs, Atwood’s Outer Raiment 


She had meant to ask Edward to advance her 
a little more on the next month’s allowance — 
already largely anticipated — but she had not 
the face to after his generosity to her now. A 
couple of dollars out of the fifty would make 
very little difference, and she did not need it 
all, anyway. She almost wept as she thought 
of Josephine’s championship of her, and her 
husband’s thoughtfulness. 

Mrs. Atwood adored her husband and her 
three children. She firmly believed them to be 
superior in every way to all other mortals; sac- 
rificing service for them was her joy of joys, 
her keenest affliction the fear that she did not 
appreciate them half enough. It is certain that 
the children, truthful, loving, and obedient as 
they had been trained to be, would have been 
spoiled beyond tolerance if it were not that the 
very strength of her admiration made it in- 
nocuous. They were so used to being told that 
they were the loveliest and dearest things on 
earth that the words were not even heard. As 
they grew older the extravagance of her devo- 
tion was beginning to* rouse the protective ele- 
ment in them, to her wonder and humility. 

Mrs. Atwood, at twenty, the time of her mar- 
riage, had been a warm-hearted, fervent, lo^ 
quacious, impulsive child. At thirty-eight she 
was still in many ways the girl her husband had 
married ; even to her looks, while he appeared 
[ 145 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


much older than his real age, in reality but a 
couple of years ahead of hers. She was always 
longing to be a silent, noble, and finely-balanced 
character, quite oblivious of the fact that she 
suited him, a humorous but self-contained man, 
exactly as she was, and that he would have been 
very lonesome with anything more perfect. 
Perhaps, after all, there are few things that are 
better to bring into a household than an uncal- 
culating and abounding love, even if the mani- 
festations of it are not always of the wisest. 

The extra money cast a rich glow over Mrs. 
Atwood’s horizon. In the effulgence of it she 
received a bill for twelve dollars presented to 
her just after breakfast the next morning, by 
the waitress, with the word that the man wait- 
ing outside the door had already brought it 
once before, when they were out of town. 
Could Mrs. Atwood pay it now? He needed 
the money. 

‘‘Why, certainly,'’ said Mrs. Atwood with 
affluent promptness. The bill was for work 
on the lawn during the summer, something her 
husband always paid for, but it seemed a pity 
to have the man go away again when the mon- 
ey was there at hand. She would not in the 
least mind asking Edward to refund it to her. 
But she felt the well-known drop into her usual 
condition of calculating economy. 

Her husband came home that night with a 
[ 146 ] 


Mrs. Atwood's Outer Raiment 


bad headache, and the night after she had an- 
other bill waiting for him for repairs on the 
furnace. It was unexpectedly and villainously 
large, and Mrs. Atwood was constitutionally 
incapable of adding another straw to his bur- 
den, while she stood by consenting sympathet- 
ically unto his righteous wrath. A day later, 
when she spoke of going to town to buy the 
material for her new costume with outward 
buoyancy, but inward panic at the rapid shrink- 
age of her funds, Sam, a boy of twelve, an- 
nounced the fact that he must have a new suit 
of clothes at once. As it was Saturday, he 
could accompany her. 

‘'What is the matter with those you have on ? 
They are not in the least worn out,’’ said his 
mother. 

“Mamma, they’re so thin that I’m freezing 
all the time I’m in school. You ought to have 
heard me coughing yesterday.” 

“You have the old' blue suit; I’m sure that’s 
thick enough.” 

“The blue suit! Yes, and it hurts me, it’s 
so tight I can hardly walk in it. I can’t sit 
down in it at all. It makes ridges all around 
my legs.” 

Mrs. Atwood looked at her son with rare 
exasperation. It was well known that when 
Sam took a dislike to his clothes for any reason, 
they always hurt him. His coats, his trousers, 
[ 147] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


his caps, his shoes, even his neckties developed 
hitherto unsuspected attributes of torture. And 
there was always a haunting feeling with the out- 
raged dispenser of these articles that it might 
be true. A penetrative and scornful remark 
from the passing Josephine at once emphasized 
this view of the case to the anxious mother, 
remorseful already at her own lack of sympathy. 

“I’m astonished at you, Josephine. If the 
clothes hurt him — ” but the girl had disap- 
peared beyond hearing. Sam came from town 
that jubilant evening, in warm and roomy jack- 
et and trousers, and, oh, weakness of woman! 
with a new football, besides. Mrs. Atwood car- 
ried with her a box of lead soldiers for Eddy, 
and a sweet little fluffy thing in neckwear for 
Josephine, such as she saw other girls display- 
ing. After all, what was her own dress in com- 
parison with the darling children’s happiness? 
She would get some cheap stuff and make it up 
herself. No one would know the difference. 

“How about your suit, Jo?” asked her hus- 
band one evening as they sat around the fire. 
“Is it almost finished?” 

“Not — exactly,” said Mrs. Atwood. 

“The club goes to Washington on the fif- 
teenth of the month, it was decided to-day. 
Nearly all the men are going to take their wives 
with them. I’m looking forward to showing 
off mine.” 


[148] 


Mrs. Atwood's Outer Raiment 


’‘My mamma will look prettier than any of 
them/’ said Eddy belligerently. 

“And lots younger/’ added Sam. 

“Have you ordered the suit yet?” asked the 
voice of Josephine. Oh, how her mother 
dreaded it! 

“No, I haven’t — ^yet,” she felt herself forced 
into saying. 

“I don’t believe there is any money left for 
it,” pursued the pitiless one. “She spends it 
for other things, papa. She pays bills and does- 
n’t tell, because she hates to bother you. And 
she buys things for us. And she paid a sub- 
scription to the Orphan’s Home yesterday, and 
she got a new wash-boiler for Katy. And — ” 

“Hush, hush, Josephine,” said her father se- 
verely. “I found that receipted bill of Patrick’s 
lying around the other day, Jo. I should have 
paid you back at once. How much money have 
you left?” 

“Oh, Edward-^I’m foolish. I—” 

“Have you thirty dollars?” 

“I — I don’t think so.” 

“Have you twenty ?” 

“I haven’t — more than that.” She had, as 
she well knew, the sum of nine dollars and 
sixty-seven cents in the purse in her dressing- 
table drawer. 

“Will this help you out ?” His tone had the 
business-like quality in it as natural as breath- 
[ 149 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


ing to a man when he speaks of money matters, 
and which a woman feels almost as a personal 
condemnation in its chill removal from sen- 
timent. 

‘‘Oh, Edward — please donh! It makes me 
feel so — '' She tried not to be too abject. “But 
nearly all of it has gone for necessary things.’’ 

“That’s all right/' He added with a touch of 
severity. “Don’t let there be any mistake about 
it this time, Jo,” and she murmured content- 
edly, 

“No. No, indeed.” 

With her allowance money, too, how could 
there be? 

Mrs. Atwood now set herself seriously to the 
work of getting appareled. She read advertise- 
ments, and went to town two days in succes- 
sion, bringing home samples of cloth for family 
approval; she sought the advice of her young 
sister-in-law, Mrs. Callender, and of her friend, 
Mrs. Nichols, with the result that she finally sat 
down one morning immediately after breakfast, 
and wrote a letter to a New York firm ordering 
a jacket and skirt made like one in a catalogue 
issued by them, and setting down her measure- 
ments according to its directions. Just before 
she finished, a maid brought her up word that 
Mrs. Martindale was below. 

“Mrs. Martindale — at this time in the morn- 


[ 150] 


Mrs. Atwood^s Outer Raiment 


Mrs. Martindale was her cousin, and lived 
over the other side of the track, some distance 
away. Mrs. Atwood hurried down with a pre- 
monition of evil to find the visitor, a pretty 
woman, elegantly but hastily gowned, sitting 
on the edge of a chair, as if ready for instant 
flight. There was a wild expression in her eye. 

She began at once, taking no notice of Mrs. 
Atwood's greeting. 

‘T suppose you think I'm crazy to come here 
in this way. I didn't sleep a wink last night. 
I didn't know what to do. We're in such a 
state !" 

‘Ts it the business?" 

‘'Oh, it's the estate and the business and 
everything. Mr. Bellew's death has just 
brought the whole thing to a standstill. All 
the money is tied up in some dreadful way — 
don't ask me. Of course it will be all right in 
three or four weeks, Dick says, and we have 
credit everywhere. It's just to tide over this 
time. But we haven't a penny of ready money ; 
not a penny. It would be ridiculous if it wasn't 
horrible. Dick gave me all he could scrape to- 
gether last week, and told me to try and make it 
last, but it's all gone ^ — I couldn't help it. And 
the washerwoman comes to-day. If you could 
let me have ten dollars, Jo; I couldn't bear to let 
Dick know." 

“Why, certainly," said Mrs. Atwood with 
[ 151 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


loving alacrity. “Don’t say another word.” 
If she felt a pang, she scorned it. 

“You don’t know how many calls there are 
on one,” murmured the other, sinking back 
with relief. 

Mrs. Atwood thought she did, but she only 
said, “You poor thing,” and rushed upstairs to 
get one of her crisp ten-dollar bills; she could 
not use the house money for this. She passed 
Josephine in the hall, afterwards, on her way to 
school, and held the bill behind her, but she felt 
sure the girl’s keen eyes had spied it. 

“I’m so glad I had it! Are you sure this 
will be enough ?” she asked as the other kissed 
her fervently. What were clothes for herself 
in comparison with poor Bertha’s need? She 
would look over the catalogue again to-mor- 
row, when she had time, and order a cheaper 
suit, or buy one ready made. 

After all, she did neither. Her money — ^but 
why chronicle further the dimunition of her 
forces ? Delay made it as inevitable as the thaw 
after snow. Her entire downfall was com- 
pleted the day she had unexpected and honor- 
able company to dinner, and sent Sam out to 
the nearest shops instead of those at which she 
usually dealt, to “break a bill” — heart-rend- 
ing process — in the purchase of fruits and 
sweets for their consumption. No one has ever 
satisfactorily explained why the change from 
[152] 


Mrs. Atwood's Outer Raiment 


five dollars never amounts to more than two 
dollars and sixteen cents. Poor Mrs. Atwood 
could never get quite used to the fact that if she 
spent money it was gone. She cherished an un- 
derlying hope that she could get it back somehow. 

As the time approached for the Washington 
trip she did not dare to meet her Edward’s eye, 
and replied but feebly to his unusually jolly 
anticipations of ‘‘this time next week.” She 
had hoped that she might have some excuse to 
remain at home, much as she had longed for 
this jaunt alone with her husband, but there 
seemed to be no loophole of escape. 

She tried to freshen up her heaviest skirt, 
and took the spring jacket she was wearing and 
made a thick lining to it, planning to disguise 
it further with a piece of fur at the neck. She 
felt horribly guilty when Josephine came in and 
caught her at it. The tall girl with her red 
cheeks just out of the wintry air looked at her 
mother with an inscrutable expression, but she 
merely said, 

'T suppose that’s to save your new suit. 
You’ll never be able to get into it, if you put 
so much wadding in,” and went ofif again. The 
mother felt relieved, yet a little hurt, too, in 
some mysterious way. 

Many a time she tried to screw her cour- 
age up to confessing that she had no outer rai- 
ment; that after all the money and all her 
[ 153 1 


Little Stories of Married Life 


promises she had nothing to show in exchange. 
The fatal moment had to come, but she put it 
ofif. She had done it so many times ! For her- 
self she did not mind; she could have confessed 
joyfully to all the crimes in the Decalogue, if 
it would have benefited her dear ones, but to 
wound their idea of her, to pain them by show- 
ing how unworthy she was, how unfit to be 
trusted — that came hard. She prayed a great 
deal about it on her knees by the bed in the 
dusk of her own room when she came upstairs 
after dinner, on the pretext of ^‘getting some- 
thing’’; she belonged to the old-fashioned, 
child-like order of women who do pray about 
things, not only daily, but hourly, and who, 
unknown to themselves, exhale the sweetness 
born of heavenly contact. 

She wondered if, perhaps, it might not be 
better if she were dead, she was such a poor 
manager, and set such a bad example to the 
children. Josephine had that clear common 
sense that she lacked. The girl was getting to 
be so companionable to her father, too. She 
had the sacrificial pleasure of the victim when 
she heard them laughing and talking down- 
stairs together. 

‘'Well, Jo, has your suit come home yet?” 

It was three nights before the fateful Thurs- 
day, and the family were grouped in the li- 
brary as was their wont in the evenings imme- 
[154] 


Mrs. Atwood’s Outer Raiment 


diately after dinner. Eddy was lying on the 
fur rug playing with the cat in the warmth of 
the wood fire, and Mr. Atwood, in a big chair 
with his wife leaning on the arm of it, sat 
watching the little boy. The two older children 
were studying by a table in the back of the 
room in front of a shaded lamp, with a pile of 
books before them. 

Mr. Atwood, although his hair and mus- 
tache were grizzled and his face prematurely 
lined, had a curious faculty of suddenly looking 
like a boy, under some pleasurable emotion; an- 
ticipation of his holiday made him young for 
the moment. His wife thought him beautiful. 

''Did you say it had not come home yet? 
You must be sure to have it on time. Take all 
your party clothes along, too.’’ 

"Oh, yes. I’m going to,” said Mrs. Atwood. 
She was on sure ground here. The gown she 
had had made for a wedding in the spring was 
crying to be worn again. 

"What color did you decide on?” 

"I — I decided on — brown,” said Mrs. At- 
wood with fixed eyes. Her respite was gone. 

"Brown — yes, I always liked you in brown. 
Have you heard your mother talk much about 
her new clothes, Josephine?” 

"No,” said Josephine, "I haven’t.” 

"Didn’t you wear brown when we went on 
our wedding trip? It seems to me that I re- 
[ 155 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


member that. I know you had red berries in 
your hat, for I knocked some of them out.’' 

“Were you married in a brown dress?” 
called Sam. 

“No,” answered the father for her, “your 
mother was married in white — some kind of 
white mosquito-netting. What makes you 
look so unhappy, Jo? Aren’t you glad to go 
off with me — in a new suit?” 

“Edward!” said Mrs. Atwood. She rose 
and stood in front of him, her dark eyes un- 
naturally large, the color coming and going in 
her rounded olive cheek. Her red lips trem- 
bled. Here, before the loved and dreaded do- 
mestic tribunal she would shriven at last. 
Her children should know just what she was 
like. “Edward! I have something to tell you.” 

“There’s the door bell,” said her husband 
with an arresting hand, as he listened for the 
outer sounds. 

“A package, sir. By the express. Twenty- 
five cents.” 

“Have you the change, Jo? It’s some 
clothes I ordered myself for the Washington 
trip ; I wanted to do you credit. Oh, don’t go 
upstairs for it.” 

“I don’t mind,” said Mrs. Atwood. Change! 
She had nothing but change. Clothes ! How 
easy it was for him to get them ! Do her 
credit — in his glossy newness, while she was in 
[156] 


Mrs. Atwood’s Outer Raiment 


that old black skirt, grown skimp and askew 
with wear, and that tight, impossible jacket! 
She charged up and down stairs in the vehe- 
mence of her emotion, filled with anger at her 
folly, and paid the man herself before reenter- 
ing the library. 

Her husband was untying the cords of the 
long pasteboard box with slow and patient fin- 
gers. He was a man who had never cut a 
string in his life. The children were standing 
by in what seemed unnecessary excitement, 
their faces all turned to her as she came toward 
them. Edward had lifted the cover of the box. 

'‘What color are your clothes, Edward?” 
asked his wife. It was the first time that he had 
ever bought anything without consulting her. 

"What color? Oh — brown,” said Mr. At- 
wood. He swooped her into a front place in 
the circle with his long arm. "Here, look and 
tell me what you think of this.” 

"Edward !” 

"Lined throughout with taffeta, gores on 
every frill — why, Jo! Bring your mother a 
chair, Josephine.” 

Before the eyes of Mrs. Atwood lay the rich 
folds of a cloth skirt, surmounted by a jacket 
trimmed with fur. 

She lay back in the armchair with the family 
clustered around her, their tongues loosened. 

"We all knew about it — ” "We promised 
[157] 


Little Stories of Married Lite 


not to tell — ” ‘‘We wanted to see you get it — ’’ 
‘There won't be anybody as pretty as you, 
mamma." “You left out that letter of meas- 
urements, and papa and I took it to Aunt Cyn- 
thia" — this from Josephine — “and she helped 
us. She says you're disgracefully unselfish." 
The girl emphasized her remark with a sudden 
and strangling hug. “There isn't anybody in 
the world as good as you are. I was watching 
you all last week; I knew you wouldn't buy a 
thing. But it was papa who thought of doing 
it, when I told him. Feel the stuff — isn't it 
lovely ? so thick and soft. He and Aunt Cyn- 
thia said you should have the best; she can 
spend money! And you're to go uptown to- 
morrow with me to buy a hat with red in it, 
and if the suit needs altering it can be done 
then. Don't you like it, mamma?'’ 

“It's perfectly beautiful," said the mother, 
her hands clasped in those of her three dar- 
lings, but her eyes sought her husband's. 

He alone said nothing, but stood regarding 
her with twinkling eyes, through a suspicion 
of moisture. What did she see in them? The 
love and kindness that clothed her not only with 
silk and wool, but with honor; that made of 
this new raiment a vesture wherein she entered 
that special and exquisite heaven of the woman 
whose husband and children arise up and call 
her blessed. 


[158] 


Fairy Gold 


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01 


Fairy Gold 


HEN Mr. William Belden walked 
out of his house one wet October 
evening and closed the hall door 
carefully behind him, he had no idea that he 
was closing the door on all the habits of his ma- 
turer life and entering the borders of a land as 
far removed from his hopes or his imagination 
as the country of the Gadarenes. 

He had not wanted to go out that evening 
at all, not knowing what the fates had in store 
for him, and being only too conscious of the 
comfort of the sitting-room lounge, upon 
which, after the manner of the suburban resi- 
dent who traveleth daily by railways, he had 
cast himself immediately after the evening meal 
was over. The lounge was in proximity — yet 
not too close proximity — to the lamp on the 
table; so that one might have the pretext of 
reading to cover closed eyelids and a general 
oblivion of passing events. On a night when 
a pouring rain splashed outside on the pave- 
ments and the tin roofs of the piazzas, the con- 
ditions of rest in the cozy little room were pecul- 
iarly attractive to a man who had come home 
draggled and wet, and with the toil and wear of 
a long business day upon him. It was therefore 

[i6i] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


with a sinking of the heart that he heard his 
wife's gentle tones requesting him to wend his 
way to the grocery to purchase a pound of 
butter. 

‘'I hate to ask you to go, William dear, but 
there really is not a scrap in the house for 
breakfast, and the butter-man does not come 
until to-morrow afternoon," she said deprecat- 
ingly. ‘‘It really will only take you a few 
minutes." 

Mr. Belden smothered a groan, or perhaps 
something worse. The butter question was a 
sore one, Mrs. Belden taking only a stated 
quantity of that article a week, and always un- 
expectedly coming short of it before the day of 
replenishment, although no argument ever 
served to induce her to increase the original 
amount for consumption. 

“Cannot Bridget go?" he asked weakly, gaz- 
ing at the small, plump figure of his wife, as 
she stood with meek yet inexorable eyes look- 
ing down at him. 

“Bridget is washing the dishes, and the 
stores will be closed before she can get out." 

“Can't one of the boys — " He stopped. 

There was in this household a god who ruled 
everything in it, to whom all pleasures were 
offered up, all individual desires sacrificed, and 
whose Best Good was the greedy and unappre- 
ciative Juggernaut before whom Mr. Belden 
[162] 


Fairy Gold 


and his wife prostrated themselves daily. This 
idol was called The Children. Mr. Belden felt 
that he had gone too far. 

‘‘William said his wife severely, “I am 
surprised at you. John and Henry have their 
lessons to get, and Willy has a cold; I could not 
think of exposing him to the night air; and it 
is so damp, too !’’ 

Mr. Belden slowly and stiffly rose from his 
reclining position on the sofa. There was a 
finality in his wife’s tone before which he 
succumbed. 

The night air was damp. As he walked 
along the street the water slopped around his 
feet, and ran in rills down his rubber coat. He 
did not feel as contented as usual. When he 
was a youngster, he reflected with exaggerated 
bitterness, boys were boys, and not treated like 
precious pieces of porcelain. He did not re- 
member, as a boy, ever having any special con- 
sideration shown him; yet he had been both 
happy and healthy, healthier perhaps than his 
over-tended brood at home. In his day it had 
been popularly supposed that nothing could 
hurt a boy. He heaved a sigh over the altered 
times, and then coughed a little, for he had a 
cold as well as Willy. 

The streets were favorable to silent medita- 
tion, for there was no one out in them. The 
boughs of the trees swished backward and for- 
[163] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


ward in the storm, and the puddles at the cross- 
ings reflected the dismal yellow glare of the 
street lamps. Everyone was housed to-night 
in the pretty detached cottages he passed, and 
he thought with growing wrath of the trivial 
errand on which he had been sent. “In happy 
homes he saw the light,'' but none of the high 
purpose of the youth of “Excelsior" fame 
stirred his heart — rather a dull sense of failure 
from all high things. What did his life amount 
to, anyway, that he should count one thing 
more trivial than another ? He loved his wife 
and children dearly, but he remembered a time 
when his ambition had not thought of being 
satisfied with the daily grind for a living and a 
dreamless sleep at night. 

“ 'Our life is but a sleep and a forgetting,' " 
he thought grimly, “in quite a different way 
from what Wordsworth meant." He had been 
one of the foremost in his class at college, an 
orator, an athlete, a favorite in society and with 
men. Great things had been predicted for 
him. Then he had fallen in love with Nettie; 
a professional career seemed to place marriage 
at too great a distance, and he had joyfully, 
yet with some struggles in his protesting intel- 
lect, accepted a position that was offered to 
him — one of those positions which never 
change, in which men die still unpromoted, 
save when a miracle intervenes. It was not so 
[164] 


Fairy Gold 


good a position for a family of six as it had 
been for a family of two, but he did not com- 
plain. He and Nettie went shabby, but the 
children were clothed in the best, as was their 
due. 

He was too wearied at night to read any- 
thing but the newspapers, and the gentle do- 
mestic monotony was not inspiring. He and 
Nettie never went out in the evenings; the chil- 
dren could not be left alone. He met his friends 
on the train in that diurnal journey to and from 
the great city, and she occasionally attended a 
church tea ; but their immediate and engrossing 
world seemed to be made up entirely of persons 
under thirteen years of age. They had dwelt 
in the place almost ever since their marriage, 
respected and liked, but with no real social life. 
If Mr. Belden thought of the years to come, he 
may be pardoned an unwonted sinking of the 
heart. 

It was while indulging in these reflections 
that he mechanically purchased the pound of 
butter, which he could not help comparing with 
Shylock's pound of flesh, so much of life had 
it taken out of him, and then found himself 
stepping up on the platform of the station, 
led by his engrossing thoughts to pass the 
street corner and tread the path most familiar 
to him. He turned with an exclamation to 
retrace his way, when a man pacing leisurely 
[165] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


up and down, umbrella in hand, caught sight 
of him. 

'‘Is that you, Belden?'’ said the stranger. 
“What are you doing down here to-night ?“ 

“I came out on an errand for my wife,’" said 
Mr. Belden sedately. He recognized the man 
as a young lawyer much identified with pol- 
itics; a mere acquaintance, yet it was a night 
to make any speaking animal seem a friend, and 
Mr. Belden took a couple of steps along beside 
him. 

^ “Waiting for a train?'’ he said. 

' “Oh, thunder, yes !" said Mr. Groper, throw* 
ing away the stump of a cigar. “I have been 
waiting for the last half hour for the train; 
it's late, as usual. There's a whole deputation 
from Barnet on board, due at the Reform meet- 
ing in town to-night, and I'm part of the com- 
mittee to meet them here." 

“Where is the other part of the committee?" 
asked Mr. Belden. 

“Oh, Jim Crane went up to the hall to see 
about something, and Connors hasn't showed 
up at all; I suppose the rain kept him back. 
What kind of a meeting we're going to have I 
don't know. Say, Belden, I'm not up to this 
sort of thing. I wish you'd stay and help me 
out — there's no end of swells coming down, 
more your style than mine." 

“Why. man alive, I can't do anything for 
[166] 


Fairy Gold 


you/’ said Mr. Belden. ‘These carriages I see 
are waiting for the delegation, and here -comes 
the train now; you’ll get along all right.” 

He waited as the train slowed into the sta- 
tion, smiling anew at little Groper’s perturba- 
tion. He was quite curious to see the arrivals. 
Barnet had been the home of his youth, and 
there might be some one whom he knew. He 
had half intended, earlier in the day, to go him- 
self to the Reform meeting, but a growing 
spirit of inaction had made him give up the 
idea. Yes, there was quite a carload of people 
getting out — ladies, too. 

, “Why, Will Belden !” called out a voice from 
the party. A tall fellow in a long ulster sprang 
forward to grasp his hand. “You don’t say it’s 
yourself come down to meet us. Here we all 
are, Johnson, Clemmerding, Albright, Cranston 
— all of the old set. Rainsford, you’ve heard 
of my cousin. Will Belden. My wife and Miss 
Wakeman are behind here; but we’ll do all the 
talking afterward, if you’ll only get us off for 
the hall now.” 

“Well, I am glad to see you, Henry,” said 
Mr. Belden heartily. He thrust the pound of 
butter hastily into a large pocket of his mack- 
intosh, and found himself shaking hands with a 
score of men. He had only time to assist his 
cousin’s wife and the beautiful Miss Wakeman 
into a carriage, and in another moment they 
[167] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


were all rolling away toward the town hall, 
with little Mr. Groper running frantically after 
them, ignored by the visitors, and peacefully 
forgotten by his friend. 

The public hall of the little town — which 
called itself a city — was all ablaze with light 
as the party entered it, and well filled, notwith- 
standing the weather. There were flowers on 
the platform where the seats for the distin- 
guished guests were placed, and a general air 
of radiance and joyful import prevailed. It 
was a gathering of men from all political par- 
ties, concerned in the welfare of the State. 
Great measures were at stake, and the election 
of governor of immediate importance. The 
name of Judge Belden of Barnet was promi- 
nently mentioned. He had not been able to at- 
tend on this particular occasion, but his son had 
come with a delegation from the county town, 
twenty miles away, to represent his interests. 
On Mr. William Belden devolved the task of 
introducing the visitors; a most congenial one, 
he suddenly found it to be. 

His friends rallied around him as people are 
apt to do with one of their own kind when 
found in a foreign country. They called him 
Will, as they used to, and slapped him on the 
shoulder in affectionate abandon. Those 
among the group who had not known him be- 
fore were anxious to claim acquaintance on the 

[i68] 


Fairy Gold 

strength of his fame, which, it seemed, still 
survived him in his native town. It must not 
be supposed that he had not seen either his 
cousin or his friends during his sojourn away 
from them; on the contrary, he had met them 
once or so in two or three years, in the street, 
or on the ferry-boat — though they traveled by 
different roads — but he had then been but a 
passing interest in the midst of pressing busi- 
ness. To-night he was the only one of their 
kind in a strange place — his cousin loved him, 
they all loved him. The expedition had 
the sentiment of a frolic under the severer 
political aspect. 

In the welcome to the visitors by the home 
committee Mr. Belden also received his part, 
in their surprised recognition of him, almost 
amounting to a discovery. 

“We had no idea that you were a nephew of 
Judge Belden,’' one of them said to him, speak- 
ing for his colleagues, who stood near. 

Mr. William Belden bowed, and smiled; as 
a gentleman, and a rather reticent one, it had 
never occurred to him to parade his family con- 
nections. His smile might mean anything. It 
made the good committeeman, who was rich 
and full of power, feel a little uncomfortable, as 
he tried to cover his embarrassment with effu- 
sive cordiality. In the background stood Mr. 
Groper, wet, and breathing hard, but plainly 
[169] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


full of admiration for his tall friend, and the 
position he held as the center of the group. The 
visitors referred all arrangements to him. 

At last they filed on to the platform — the two 
cousins together. 

‘‘You must find a place for the girls,” said 
Henry Belden, with the peculiar boyish giggle 
that his cousin remembered so well. “By 
George, they would come ; couldn’t keep ’em at 
home, after they once got Jim Shore to say it 
was all right. Of course, Marie Wakeman 
started it; she said she was bound to go to a 
political meeting and sit on the platform ; argu- 
ing wasn’t a bit of use. When she got Clara 
on her side I knew that I was doomed. Now, 
you couldn’t get them to do a thing of this kind 
at home; but take a woman out of her natural 
sphere, and she ignores conventionalities, just 
like a girl in a bathing-suit. There they are, 
seated over in that corner. I’m glad that they 
are hidden from the audience by the pillar. Of 
course, there’s that fool of a Jim, too, with 
Marie.” 

“You don’t mean to say she’s at it yet?” said 
his cousin William. 

“ ‘At it yet !’ She’s never stopped for a mo- 
ment since you kissed her that night on the 
hotel piazza after the hop, under old Mrs. Tre- 
lawney’s window — do you remember that, 
Will?” 


[ 170] 


Fairy Gold 


Mr. William Belden did indeed remember it; 
it was a salute that had echoed around their 
little world, leading, strangely enough, to the 
capitulation of another heart — it had won him 
his wife. But the little intimate conversation was 
broken ofif as the cousins took the places allotted 
to them, and the business of the meeting began. 

If he were not the chairman, he was appealed 
to so often as to almost serve in that capacity. 
He became interested in the proceedings, and 
in the speeches that were made; none of them, 
however, quite covered the ground as he under- 
stood it. His mind unconsciously formulated 
propositions as the flow of eloquence went on. 
It therefore seemed only right and fitting 
toward the end of the evening, when it became 
evident that his Honor the Mayor was not 
going to appear, that our distinguished fellow- 
citizen, Mr. William Belden, nephew of Judge 
Belden of Barnet, should be asked to represent 
the interests of the county in a speech, and that 
he should accept the invitation. 

He stood for a moment silent before the as- 
sembly, and then all the old fire that had lain 
dormant for so long blazed forth in the speech 
that electrified the audience, was printed in all 
the papers afterward, and fitted into a political 
pamphlet. 

He began with a comprehensive statement 
of facts, he drew large and logical deductions 
[ 171 ] 


i 


Little Stories of Married Life 


from them, and then lit up the whole subject 
with those brilliant flashes of wit and sarcasm 
for which he had been famous in bygone days. 
More than that, a power unknown before had i 
come to him; he felt the real knowledge and | 
grasp of affairs which youth had denied him, j 
and it was with an exultant thrill that his voice i 
rang through the crowded hall, and stirred the 
hearts of men. For the moment they felt as he 
felt, and thought as he thought, and a storm of 
applause arose as he ended — applause that grew 
and grew until a few more pithy words were 
necessary from the orator before silence could 
be restored. 

He made his way to the back of the hall for 
some water, and then, half exhausted, yet ting- 
ling still from the excitement, dropped into an 
empty chair by the side of Miss Wakeman. 

‘'Well done, Billy,’’ she said, giving him a 
little approving tap with her fan. “You were 
just fine.” She gave him an upward glance 
from her large dark eyes. “Do you know you 
haven’t spoken to me to-night, nor shaken 
hands with me?” 

“Let us shake hands now,” he said, smiling, 
flushed with success, as he looked into the eyes 
of this very pretty woman. 

“I shall take off my glove first — such old 
friends as we are! It must be a real cere- 
mony.” 


[ 172] 


Fairy Gold 

She laid a soft, white, dimpled hand, covered 
with glistening rings, in his outstretched palm, 
and gazed at him with coquettish plaintiveness. 
''It’s so lovely to see you again ! Have you for- 
gotten the night you kissed me?” 

''I have thought of it daily,” he replied, giv- 
ing her hand a hearty squeeze. They both 
laughed, and he took a surreptitious peep at her 
from under his eyelids. Marie Wakeman! Yes, 
truly, the same, and with the same old tricks. 
He had been married for nearly fourteen years, 
his children were half grown, he had long since 
given up youthful friskiness, but she was "at 
it” still. Why, she had been older than he 
when they were boy and girl; she must be for — 
He gazed at her soft, rounded, olive cheek, and 
quenched the thought. 

"And you are very happy?” she pursued, 
with tender solicitude. "Nettie makes you a 
perfect wife, I suppose.” 

"Perfect,” he assented gravely. 

"And you haven’t missed me at all?” 

"Can you ask?” It was the way in which 
all men spoke to Marie Wakeman, married or 
single, rich or poor, one with another. He 
laughed inwardly at his lapse into the ex- 
pected tone. "I feel that I really breathe for 
the first time in years, now that I’m with you 
again. But how is it that you are not mar- 
ried?” . 


[ 173] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


'‘What, after I had known you?’’ She gave 
him a reproachful glance. "And you were so 
cruel to me — as soon as you had made your 
little Nettie jealous you cared for me no longer. 
Look what I’ve declined to!” She indicated 
Jim Shore, leaning disconsolately against the 
cornice, chewing his moustache. "Now don’t 
give him your place unless you really want to; 
well, if you’re tired of me already — thank you 
ever so much, and I am proud of you to-night, 
Billy!” 

Her lustrous eyes dwelt on him lingeringly 
as he left her; he smiled back into them. The 
lines around her mouth were a little hard; she 
reminded him indefinably of "She”; but she 
was a handsome woman, and he had enjoyed 
the encounter. The sight of her brought back 
so vividly the springtime of life; his hopes, the 
pangs of love, the joy that was his when Net- 
tie was won; he felt an overpowering throb of 
tenderness for the wife at home who had been 
his early dream. 

The last speeches were over, but Mr. William 
Belden’s triumph had not ended. As the ac- 
knowledged orator of the evening he had an 
ovation afterward ; introductions and unlimited 
hand-shakings were in order. 

He was asked to speak at a select political 
dinner the next week; to speak for the hospital 
fund; to speak for the higher education of 
1 174] 


Fairy Gold 


woman. Led by a passing remark of Henry 
Belden’s to infer that his cousin was a whist 
player of parts, a prominent social magnate at 
once invited him to join the party at his house 
on one of their whist evenings. 

‘'My wife, er — will have great pleasure in 
calling on Mrs. Belden,” said the magnate. 
“We did not know that we had a good whist 
player among us. This evening has indeed 
been a revelation in many ways — in many ways. 
You would have no objection to taking a prom- 
inent part in politics, if you were called upon? 
A reform mayor is sadly needed in our city 
— sadly needed. Your connection with Judge 
Belden would give great weight to any propo- 
sition of that kind. But, of course, all this is 
in the future.’’ 

Mr. Belden heard his name whispered in 
another direction, in connection with the cash- 
iership of the new bank which was to be built. 
The cashiership and the mayoralty might be 
nebulous honors, but it was sweet, for once, to 
be recognized for what he was — a man of 
might ; a man of talent, and of honor. 

There was a hurried rush for the train at the 
last on the part of the visitors. Mr. William 
Belden snatched his mackintosh from the peg 
whereon it had hung throughout the evening, 
and went with the crowd, talking and laughing 
-in buoyant exuberance of spirits. The night 
[ 175] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


had cleared, the moon was rising, and poured 
a flood of light upon the wet streets. It was a 
different world from the one he had traversed ' 
earlier in the evening. He walked home with 
Miss Wakeman’s exaggeratedly tender “Good- 
by, dear Billy ringing in his ears, to provoke 
irrepressible smiles. The pulse of a free life, 
where men lived instead of vegetating, was in 
his veins. His footstep gave forth a ringing 
sound from the pavement; he felt himself stal- 
wart, alert, his brain rejoicing in its sense of 
power. It was even with no sense of gnilt that 
he heard the church clocks striking twelve as 
he reached the house where his wife had been 
awaiting his return for four hours. 

She was sitting up for him, as he knew by 
the light in the parlor window. He could see 
her through the half-closed blinds as she sat by 
the table, a magazine in her lap, her attitude, 
unknown to herself, betraying a listless depres- 
sion. After all, is a woman glad to have all 
her aspirations and desires confined within four 
walls ? She may love her cramped quarters, to 
be sure, but can she always forget that they are 
cramped? To what does a wife descend after 
the bright dreams of her girlhood ! Does she 
really like above all things to be absorbed in 
the daily consumption of butter, and the chil- 
dren’s clothes, or is she absorbed in these things 
because the man who was to have widened 
[ 176] 


Fairy Gold 

the horizon of her life only limits it by his own 
decadence ? 

She rose to meet her husband as she heard 
his key in the lock. She had exchanged her 
evening gown for a loose, trailing white wrap- 
per, and her fair hair was arranged for the 
night in a long braid. Her husband had a smile 
on his face. 

‘‘You look like a girl again,’’ he said bright- 
ly, as he stooped and kissed her. “No, don’t 
turn out the light; come in and sit down a while 
longer. I’ve ever so much to tell you. You 
can’t guess where I’ve been this evening.” 

“At the political meeting,” she said promptly. 

“How on earth did you know ?” 

“The doctor came here to see Willy, and he 
told me he saw you on the way. I’m glad 
you did go, William; I was worrying because 
I had sent you out ; I did not realize until later 
what a night it was.” 

“Well, I am very glad that you did send me,” 
said her husband. He lay back in his chair, 
flushed and smiling at the recollection. “You 
ought to have been there, too ; you would have 
liked it. What will you say if I tell you that 
I made a speech^ — yes, it is quite true — and was 
applauded to the echo. This town has just 
waked up to the fact that I live in it. And 
Henry said — but there. I’ll have to tell you the 
whole thing, or you can’t appreciate it.” 

[ 177] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


His wife leaned on the arm of his chair, 
watching his animated face fondly, as he re- 
counted the adventures of the night. He pic- 
tured the scene vividly, and with a strong sense 
of humor. 

'‘And you don't say that Marie Wakeman is 
the same as ever?" she interrupted with a flash 
of special interest. "Oh, William!" 

'‘She called me Billy." He laughed anew at 
the thought. "Upon my word, Nettie, she 
beats anything I ever saw or heard of." 

"Did she remind you of the time you kissed 
her?" 

"Yes!" Their eyes met in amused recogni- 
tion of the past. 

"Is she as handsome as ever?" 

"Um — yes — I think so. She isn’t as pretty 
as you are." 

"Oh, Will !" She blushed and dimpled. 

"I declare, it is true!" He gazed at her with 
genuine admiration. "What has come over 
you to-night, Nettie? — you look like a girl 
again." 

"And you were not sorry when you saw her, 
that — that — " 

"Sorry! I have been thinking all the way 
home how glad I was to have won my sweet 
wife. But w^e mustn’t stay shut up at home as 
much as we have; it’s not good for either of us. 
We are to be asked to join the whist club — 
[178] 


Fairy Gold 


what do you think of that? You used to be a 
little card fiend once upon a time, I remember/' 
She sighed. ‘'It is so long since I have been 
anywhere! Fm afraid I haven't any clothes, 
Will. I suppose I might — " 

“What, dear?" 

“Take the money I had put aside for Mary's 
next quarter's music lessons; I do really believe 
a little rest would do her good." 

“It would — it would," said Mr. Belden with 
suspicious eagerness. Mary's after-dinner prac- 
ticing hour had tinged much of his existence 
with gall. “I insist that Mary shall have a 
rest. And you shall join the reading society 
now. Let us consider ourselves a little as well 
as the children; it's really best for them, too. 
Haven't we immortal souls as well as they? 
Can we expect them to seek the honey dew of 
paradise while they see us contented to feed 
on the grass of the field ? 

“You call yourself an orator!" she scofifed. 
He drew her to him by one end of the long 
braid, and solemnly kissed her. Then he went 
into the hall and took something from the pock- 
et of his mackintosh which he placed in his 
wife's hand — a little wooden dish covered with 
a paper, through which shone a bright yellow 
substance — the pound of butter, a lump of 
gleaming fairy gold, the quest of which had 
1 179 1 


Little Stories of Married Life 


changed a poor, commonplace existence into 
one scintillating with magic possibilities. 

Fairy gold, indeed, cannot be coined into 
marketable eagles. Mr. William Belden might 
never achieve either the mayoralty or the cash- 
iership, but he had gained that of which money 
is only a trivial accessory. The recognition of 
men, the flashing of high thought to high 
thought, the claim of brotherhood in the work 
of the world, and the generous social inter- 
course that warms the heart — all these were 
to be his. Not even his young ambition had 
promised a wider field, not the gold of the 
Indies could buy him more of honor and re- 
spect. 

At home also the spell worked. He had but 
to speak the word, to name the thing, and Net- 
tie embodied his thought. He called her young, 
and happy youth smiled from her clear eyes; 
beautiful, and a blushing loveliness enveloped 
her; clever, and her ready mind leaped to 
match with his in thought and study; dear, and 
love touched her with its transforming fire and 
breathed of long-forgotten things. 

If men only knew what they could make of 
the women who love them — ^but they do not, 
as the plodding, faded matrons who sit and sew 
by their household fires testify to us daily. 

Happy indeed is he who can create a paradise 
by naming it ! 


[i8o] 


A Matrimonial Episode 




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A Matrimonial Episode 

I T was in the year that Dick Martindale 
spent out West in the service of the 
Electrographic Company that his wife 
became acquainted with Sarah Latimer. Al- 
though the latter was by birth a Western girl 
she had lived long enough in the East to seem 
like a compatriot to Bertha Martindale, who 
had come from the dear gregarious suburban 
life with its commingling of family interests 
and sympathy, to a land peopled thinly with 
her husband’s friends, mostly men. Dick 
laughingly asserted that she had never forgiven 
him for his few years of Western life previous 
to their marriage, ascribing all his faults of 
habit and expression to that demoralizing in- 
fluence, and he wondered at her courage in ex- 
posing little Rich and Mary to the chance of 
acquiring the wide ease and carelessness she 
objected to in him. He had been a little un- 
easy, in view of her previous opinions, as to the 
manner in which she would dispense hospital- 
ity in the little furnished house that they hired, 
but he need not have feared. Bertha had al- 
ways been used to popularity. 

‘‘Don’t you think I get on well with people?” 
she asked. 


[183] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


‘‘Like a bird,” said her husband. 

“No, but really. Don’t you think I adapt 
myself?” 

“You do so much adapting that I’m getting 
afraid of you.” 

''Don't'' She put his newspaper one side 
and kissed him, and he submitted to the caress 
patiently, his eyes still following the paragraph 
on which they had been fixed. 

“The two women I really feel at home with,” 
she continued musingly, “are the clergyman’s 
wife, who is just a dear, poor soul ! and a living 
reproach to everyone, and Sarah Latimer. I 
wonder that you never told me about her, 
Richard.” 

“Sarah Latimer! I always thought she was 
a stick,” said Richard, glancing up from the 
newspaper. 

“Well, she is not, at all; at any rate, she’s 
only the least little bit stick-y. Oh! I suppose 
if I were at home I mightn’t have taken such a 
fancy to her, but out here — ! and I do think 
it’s pathetic about her.” 

“How on earth you can discover anything 
pathetic about Sarah Latimer, Bertha, beats 
me. That long, sandy-haired wisp of a girl! 
Let me alone; I want to read my paper.” 

“No,” she held the paper down with one 
hand. “It’s really important; do listen to me, 
Dick ! I want to do something for her.” 

[184] 


A Matrimonial Episode 

“You are doing something for her; you have 
her here morning, noon, and night. She’s for- 
ever going about with little Rich and Mary; 
people will be taking her for my wife some day, 
you just see if they don’t. I nearly kissed 
her by mistake for you yesterday; she was right 
in the way as I came in the door. Now don’t 
feel jealous!” 

“No, I won’t,” said Bertha with indignation. 
“But look here, Dick ! I know she is with us a 
good deal, but I do want to give her a chance.” 

“A chance of what?” 

“A chance to enjoy herself, and to see peo- 
ple, and to feel that she’s young, and — oh, a 
chance to get married, if you will have me say 
it.” 

“I thought so,” said Dick. “You may as 
well let her go back to private life, Bertha; 
she’ll never be a success on any stage of that 
kind. I don’t believe any man ever wanted to 
marry her, or ever will.” 

“You can’t tell,” said Bertha musingly. “So 
many fellows come here ! I should think some 
of them might fancy her.” 

“No, they will not,” said Richard deliberate- 
ly. “You mark my words; that girl will never 
get married. Yes, I know she’s good, and she’s 
clever, and really not bad looking, either, when 
you take her to pieces. But she’s not inter- 
[185] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


esting — that’s the gist of the whole matter, and 
nothing you can say or do will alter that.” 

'‘She may not be interesting to you, but she 
is to me,” returned Bertha. “And that argu- 
ment goes for nothing, Dick. Scores of unin- 
teresting girls get married every year. Here is 
Sarah Latimer at thirty, or near it, with noth- 
ing in this world to occupy her, or take up her 
attention. Her uncle and aunt are very good to 
her, but they don’t need her — she is rather in 
the way, if anything. That big house is all sol- 
emnly comfortable and well arranged, and op- 
pressively neat. The servants have been there 
for years. The furniture was bought in the 
age when it was made to last, and it has lasted. 
The curtains are always drawn in the parlor, 
and if a chink of light comes in, Mrs. Latimer 
draws them closer; everything is dim and well 
preserved, and smells stuflfy when it doesn’t 
smell of oilcloth. It gives me the creeps !” 

“You are eloquent,” said Richard. 

“There is only one place that looks as if it 
were ever used,” continued Bertha, unheeding, 
“and that’s the sitting-room off the parlor. It 
has a faded green lounge in it, and discolored 
family photographs in oval walnut frames, and 
two big haircloth rockers, with tidies on 
them, on either side of the table, which holds 
a lamp, a newspaper — not a pile of them, they 
are always cleared away neatly — and a piece of 

[i86] 


A Matrimonial Episode 


knitting work. Here Mr. and Mrs. Latimer 
doze all the evening.” 

‘‘What on earth has all this to do with Sa- 
rah’s marriage?” asked Richard. 

“Everything! Don’t you see that the poor 
girl is just being choked by degrees; it’s a case 
of slow suf¥ocation. She lived East after she 
left school until five years ago, and came back 
to find her girl friends married and moved 
away. People, of course, sent her invitations, 
and were polite to her, but there seemed no par- 
ticular place for her, anywhere. She’s too 
clever for most of the men here, and her stand- 
ard is above them. She’s what I call a very 
highly educated girl.” 

“You seem to suit them,” said Richard, 
laughing. 

“I’m naturally frivolous,” said Bertha with 
a sigh, “but Sarah isn’t. If she only had to 
work for a living she would be a great success, 
but she has enough of a little income to support 
her. She reads to Rich and Mary, and she is 
giving music lessons to some little girls just for 
occupation. Besides, she practices Beethoven 
three hours a day — she’s making a specialty of 
the sonatas. She reads Herbert Spencer a great 
deal, and has theories of education, and on 
governing children. I’m afraid that neither 
Mr. Allenton nor your friend Dick Quimby 
care about sonatas or Herbert Spencer.” 

[187] 


1 


Little Stories of Married Life 


'‘Not a hang!’’ said Richard. "If she could 
play the banjo, or give them a dance — ^by Jove, 
I’d like to see Sarah Latimer dance a—” 

"Richard!” cried Bertha, indignantly. "If 
you’re going to be horrid I’ll go away, I won’t 
say another word.” 

"Then I’ll he horrid, for I don’t want you to 
say another word! I’m dead sick of Sarah 
with her pale, moony eyes and her straw-colored 
smile^ — send her to Jericho, and let me read my 
newspaper, and don’t embrace me any more, 
you’ll muss my hair.” He turned and kissed 
his wife as an offset to the words. 

Bertha could not help owning to herself that 
week that Sarah was a little heavy. She was a 
tall, thin girl, with a long nose, light gray eyes, 
and a quantity of sandy red hair. She had no 
color in her cheeks, and she had a peculiar look 
of withered youth, like a bud that the frost has 
touched. Beneath that outer crust of primness 
and shyness there was, as Bertha had divined, 
an absolutely virginal heart, as untried in the 
ways of love or love’s pretense as that of a 
child of six. She had not had any real girl- 
hood yet at all, while she was apparently long 
past it. Bertha wondered at that slow devel- 
opment, which occurs much oftener than she 
dreamed of. 

She asked Sarah indefatigably to spend the 
evenings with her. On these occasions Sarah 

[i88] 


A Matrimonial Episode 

sat completely, appallingly silent amid the jokes 
and laughter of the others. Bertha had long 
consultations with her dear friend, the clergy- 
man’s wife, about her. 

''She will never like anyone who is not on the 
highest intellectual plane,” said Bertha with a 
sigh; "but there’s a sort of wistful sentimental- 
ity through it all that makes me so sorry !” 

It was some days after this that Bertha sat 
one morning cutting out garments for little 
Rich and Mary, when Sarah Latimer came in. 
The children greeted her, but not effusively. 
They were always instructed to be on their best 
behavior in her presence, and regarded her 
more as an awe-inspiring companion, who read 
to them, took them walking, and picked up 
blocks for them, than as a friend to be loved; 
she was always oppressively quiet while they 
chattered. 

"Sit down, Sarah,” said Bertha cordially, 
sweeping a pile of cambrics from a chair. 
"Here’s a fan, if you want it, but you don't 
look a bit hot; you never do. I think you’re 
pale this morning. Aren’t you well ?” 

"Why, yes,” said Sarah slowly. Her eyes 
had a dazed look in them, and there was an un- 
certain note in her voice. 

Bertha observed her critically. Sarah’s drab 
gown, made with severe plainness, took all the 
life out of her hair and complexion, and made 
[189] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


her tall figure gaunt. Bertha cast her brown 
eyes down at her own lilac muslin, overflowing 
with little rippling frills and furbelows, and 
sighed, a genuine sigh of pity, for another 
woman’s misuse of her opportunities. 

'‘What have you been doing lately, Sarah? 
I haven’t seen you for some days.” 

"Nothing much,” said Sarah. 

"I expected you yesterday; Dick Quimby 
asked why you were not here. He’s asked after 
you twice lately, Sarah. I think he’s beginning 
to be fond of you.” 

"Because he asked after me twice?” said 
Sarah. "Perhaps he’ll propose to me to-mor- 
row.” She gave a spasmodic laugh, and the 
color came and went in her face. Bertha gazed 
at her in genuine surprise. 

"I don’t know what’s the matter with you, 
Sarah,” she said. "I’m glad you came in, for 
I wanted to ask you to join us in a little trip to 
the Lakes. Dick has to go Thursday, and we 
have concluded to make up a party. We’ll be 
gone a couple of weeks, and Mr. Quimby is to 
join us there. I think we’ll have a lovely time.” 

"You’re very kind,” said Sarah, pulling nerv- 
ously at her fan, "but I don’t think I can go.” 

"Why not? You won’t have to dress.” 

"It’s not that. The fact is — Did I ever 
speak to you of Will Bronson ?” 

"No, who is he?” 


A Matrimonial Episode 


‘‘I had almost forgotten that myself/' said 
Sarah, ‘ 'until he came to call yesterday. I knew 
him years ago when I was a young girl; we 
went to school together. He was a nice boy, but 
I never had much to do with him; boys never 
cared for me as they did for other girls. At 
any rate, he came to see us yesterday. He lives 
in Idaho; he's; been out there for a dozen years, 
and he says he's pretty well off." 

, "Well," said Bertha expectantly, as the other 
stopped, "what does he look like ?" 

"Oh, he's pretty tall, and he has a big brown 
beard." 

"I suppose that he is intellectual?" 

"Not a bit! He's very — very — ^Western. 
You think we are Western here, Bertha, but 
we're not." 

"And is this gentleman stopping with you?" 
pursued Bertha. 

"No, he left for New York to-day." 

"Then why can't you join our party for the 
Lakes?" 

"Because — " The fan dropped from Sarah's 
fingers. "The truth is, Bertha, he asked me to 
marry him; that's what he came for." 

''Whatr cried Bertha. 

"He brought some letters to uncle," went on 
Sarah, "recommendations, and all that, and 
afterwards he spoke to me. He says he's al- 
ways thought he'd marry me when he had 
[ 19.1 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


time, but he has never been able to leave the 
mines before. He has an aunt who lives here, 
and she has written to him about me, some- 
times. He has gone on to New York for a 
week, and wants to stop back here over one 
day to get married and then go straight out to 
Idaho. He wanted me to answer him yester- 
day, but I asked him to give me until this morn- 
ing to make up my mind.’’ 

“And what did you say then?'' asked Bertha 
breathlessly. 

“I said yes," said Sarah. 

Bertha rose up, heedless of all her sewing 
materials, which dropped on the floor, and 
walking over to Sarah, solemnly embraced her. 

“You are a dear girl," she said. Then she 
took Sarah's hand in hers, solicitously. “Had- 
n't you better lie down, Sarah, and let me 
bathe your forehead and get you a glass of lem- 
onade ?" 

“I'm not ill," said the girl with a convulsive 
laugh. 

“You are just shaking all over," said Bertha, 
“and no wonder ! Do you think you love him, 
Sarah ?" 

“I don't know." 

“Well, you are sure he loves you?" 

“He says he does." 

“And does he seem perfectly splendid to you, 
dear?” 


[ 192] 


A Matrimonial Episode 


''I guess so/’ said Sarah. 

‘'And you are to be married — when? A 
week from to-day? Oh, what a time you will 
have getting your clothes! And to think I’ll 
not be here at the wedding — it’s too, too bad. 
Sarah, I’m just delighted with you. I always 
knew you weren’t like other people; most girls 
wouldn’t have dared.” 

“Maybe I’ll wish that I hadn’t,” said Sarah, 
and the dazed, vacant expression came back 
with the words. 

Richard and his friends were at first incred- 
ulous when Bertha narrated the news. to them; 
then, to quote Dick’s expression, Sarah’s stock, 
in the general estimation, went up fifty per cent. 

“The old girl must have had something jolly 
about her, after all,” he said. “You were right 
this time, Bertha. I met this Bronson once, and 
he’s a good fellow. What a lot of courage he 
must have !” 

Bertha only met Sarah once after this before 
she left for the Lakes. She saw the bride- 
groom’s picture, which represented him as a 
tall, stalwart fellow, with a big beard and mer- 
ry, honest eyes. Bertha liked the face, and felt 
that it was one that inspired confidence. 

“To think that after all my planning she 
should have done it just by herself,” said 
Bertha to her husband, “and it was such an 
unlikely thing.” 


[ 193] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


“It is singular that the world can move with- 
out your pushing it” replied her husband with 
a quizzical smile. 

Within a few months the Martindales’ plans 
were broken up; their stay West was no longer 
necessary, and they went back home again. 
Bertha received one letter from Sarah after 
her marriage, a singularly flat and colorless 
epistle, which told nothing. Bertha had peri- 
odical times of wonderment as to Sarah's pres- 
ent life and chances of happiness. Her own 
short experience of Western life resolved itself 
mainly into a recollection of the girl with 
whom, after all, she had been most intimately 
associated, and who had disappeared from her 
horizon so suddenly and romantically. 

It was not until three years later that she 
heard of Sarah again. Then she received a 
note from Mrs. Bronson, who, it appeared, had 
come East for a few days and was stopping at 
a large hotel in town. 

Bertha was delighted. With a whimsical re- 
membrance of her long, tedious days with Sa- 
rah was a real affection for her. She left the 
children at home, although they clamored to be 
taken to see their old friend. 

She felt that there was so much to talk about 
that she must be absolutely untrammeled. How 
she would astonish Dick when he came home ! 

As she ascended in the gorgeous elevator, 
[194] 


A Matrimonial Episode 

her mind mechanically reverted to Sarah's for- 
mer surroundings; she was glad to be able to 
infer that the silver mines had proved fortu- 
nate. She was shown into a private parlor, 
equally gorgeous in its appointments. She 
heard the sound of a laughing voice in the ad- 
joining room, and the next moment a portiere 
was pushed aside and Sarah appeared. She 
was dressed in a trailing silken tea-gown of a 
deep crimson tint — her hair shone like a coronal 
of gold, there was a rosy flush on her cheeks, 
and her eyes gleamed with merriment. In her 
arms she held a handsome baby boy of about 
a year old, who suddenly turned and ducked 
his head into his mother's neck as he saw the 
stranger, taking hold of her hair with both 
hands and giving it a pull that loosened its fas- 
tenings and sent it tumbling around them both. 

‘‘You little rogue," she said. “His nurse has 
gone out for a few moments, and I don't know 
what to do with him. Keep still, Wilfred." 

Two small, fat, black-stockinged feet, like 
little puddings, were kicking wildly in a vain 
attempt to get up on her shoulder, and, presum- 
ably, over on the other side, where his head and 
hands already were, as far as possible from the 
strange lady. 

- Sarah sat down on the sofa, clasping the boy 
in one arm; with the other she swept the tum- 
bled hair back from her face. 

[195] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


'‘Now I can at least look at you, Bertha,'' she 
said. 

Bertha made a movement forward to kiss 
her, but the infant, who had turned his head 
for furtive observation, ducked back again with 
renewed scramblings and kicking at the first 
indication of her approach. 

"I think he will kill me soon," said his moth- 
er resignedly. 

“Where is your Herbert Spencer?" Bertha » 
couldn't help asking; but at that moment the 
truant nurse arrived; the boy, still in his atti- 
tude of clutching, was detached from his mam- 
ma's gown, one hand and foot at a time, as one 
separates a cat from a cushion. As soon as this 
was accomplished, he turned and fell upon his 
nurse in like manner, and the sight of a round 
little body, entirely headless, with two waving 
black feet, was Bertha's last view of the heir of 
the Bronsons. 

The two women clasped hands impulsively 
and looked at each other; then they both burst 
into a fit of laughter, deliciously inconsequent. 

“It is so perfectly ridiculous !" said Sarah at 
last. 

“What?" asked Bertha. 

“Why, that it is I, at all. It's so absurd to 
think that that's my baby ! I haven't the least 
idea what to do with him." 

They both laughed again, helplessly. 

[196] 


A Matrimonial Episode 


'‘You are very happy?'’ asked Bertha, trying 
to be serious. 

“I suppose I am. Sometimes I think every- 
thing is topsy-turvy, and I don't see straight; 
it's all so different from the life I used to live, 
but — it's nice." 

"Do you keep up your music?" asked Bertha 
again, after a pause. 

"I don't keep up anything. I play dance mu 
sic, and read the newspapers. I've been travel- 
ing nearly all the time since I was married. 
Will's business keeps us flying, for one reason 
or another, there are so many companies that he 
has to see. I'm always packing or unpacking, or 
in a Pullman car, and I think always that when 
I get through traveling I will find myself back 
at uncle's once more, and begin to dust every- 
thing neatly. You know that we go off again 
to-night. I'm so sorry you won't see my hus- 
band; he'll not be back here until train time." 

"I'm sorry, too," said Bertha. 

"I want to thank you for all you did for me 
in the old days," pursued her hostess. Their 
positions were reversed; it was she who led the 
conversation, while Bertha replied. 

"If it hadn't been for you I should never 
have been married at all." 

"My dear, I had absolutely nothing to do 
with the matrimonial cyclone which swept you 
off," said Bertha, laughing again. 

[ 197] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


“Yes, you did, you were so happy, it. made 
me very envious to see you and your husband 
together. If it hadn’t been for that, I don’t 
think I’d ever have had the courage to say yes 
when Will asked me. And yon were so kind 
and good to me, and I know I’m only a stupid 
thing at best.” 

“You’re just a dear,” said Bertha very 
warmly. Then the two women had a long and 
exhaustive conversation, before they finally 
parted. ^ 

“She’s very handsome,” said Bertha to her 
husband that night. He was quite interested 
and curious about it all. “She’s rich, and she’s 
happy. Isn’t she the last woman on earth you 
would have imagined such a romance happen- 
ing to!” 

“Yes, indeed,” said Richard. 

“What do you suppose there is in married 
life to improve a girl so ? She’s not in the least 
uninteresting now.” 

“Judge from your ow;n experience,” said 
Richard. “Association with a superior being 
cannot fail—” 

“You need not say any more,” said Bertha 
with the scorn expected of her. Then, with a 
sudden change of tone, “If she had married 
you, darling, instead of that Bronson man, I 
could . have understood it— no woman could 
help being nicer for loving yau.'” 

[198] 


Not a Sad Story 


1‘SI9J 



Not a Sad Story 

little Rhodes boy was dead. The 
two women who slipped out of the 
back door of Mrs. Rhodes's house had 
red eyes, and conversed in low tones as they 
came down the street facing the bitter wind. 
One of them wore a long cloak of rich fur, 
which covered her from throat to ankles, but 
the other only drew her short gray shawl tight- 
ly around her and walked in the snow with feet 
encased in the carpet slippers which she had 
worn all night. Although one woman was 
young, and the other well past middle age, they 
had a certain likeness in the haggard look 
which watching and grief bring. 

The early morning light shone wanly over 
the snow, the white houses with their closed 
blinds, and the range of white hills beyond. 
The smoke was beginning to rise from the 
kitchen chimneys at the back of some of the 
houses, where occasional lights were seen flick- 
ering to and fro, and the smell of the burning 
wood pervaded the frosty air. 

‘'You're tired," said the older woman sud- 
denly, as If noticing her companion's fatigue 
for the first time. 

“So are you, Mrs. Rawls." 

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''Oh, Fm used to it. I ain't been rested since 
Jimmy was born, and that was — let me see — 
thirty-five year ago. There ain’t a week passed 
in all that time that I haven’t planned to rest 
the next week, but I ain’t never compassed it 
yet.” She laughed a little as she spoke, and 
trudged along more vigorously. "I guess you 
ain’t often been out at this time in the mornin’.” 

"Not very often,” said the other. Her voice 
was low and sweet, with a little tremulous 
catch in it, as if she were almost exhausted. 

" ’Tisn’t but a step now to the house,” said 
Mrs. Rawls encouragingly. "I knew the sleigh 
wouldn’t be down for you for a couple of hours 
yet, and it did seem best to leave Mis’ Rhodes 
for a while, with just Elmira downstairs, after 
we’d done all we could. There’ll be neighbors 
in later, and people to inquire, and she won’t 
get much quiet. She wants just to be alone 
with him for a little. That dear child — ” she 
stopped and choked for a minute. "There! It 
don’t seem right to cry, and him so sweet and 
peaceful. It was mighty good of you to stay 
these last two nights.” 

"Oh, don’t, don’t !” said the other in a pained 
tone. "As if I could have helped wanting to 
stay ! It was so good of her to let me. All that 
I could do seemed so little. She was so brave, 
so patient ; I shall never forget it, and that sweet 
child — ” she stopped as Mrs. Rawls had done. 

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‘'Why, it was only last week that I was walk- 
ing along here in the snow, and he ran across 
the street to me and said : ‘It’s so slippery here 
now, Mrs. Armstrong, I’m afraid you’ll fall; 
you had better lean on me.’ He put out his 
little hand for me to take, as seriously as you 
please, and I let him help me over the crossing. ^ 
I can see his blue eyes now, with that merry 
light in them, gazing at me. It doesn’t seem 
possible — ” 

“Hardly a morning passed,” said Mrs. 
Rawls, “that was fit for him to be out, that he 
didn’t put his head in at my door and say, ‘How 
are you, Mis’ Rawls? Can I do anything for 
you?’ He was just like a bit of sunshine, with 
his curly golden head. It don’t appear as if it 
could be right that such as him should be took 
— him as was just born to be a blessing, and his 
mother without a soul in the world but the 
boy, and they all in all to each other. I can’t 
understand it, nohow.” 

“It is very difiicult,” said the other with a 
long-drawn sigh. “My heart just aches for 
her, she seems so alone. Is this your house, 
Mrs. Rawls ? It is odd, isn’t it, that we’ve both 
lived here all these years, and yet this is the 
first time I’ve ever known you to speak to. I 
always thought you had such a kind face. I’ve 
often felt that I’d like to speak to you, but I 
didn’t know how.” 


[203] 


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‘'Why, my dear!'' said Mrs. Rawls, stopping 
on the threshold, her countenance fairly illu- 
mined with pleased surprise; “you that’s so rich 
and proud and handsome — why, I never even 
sensed that you saw me. You afraid to speak to 
me! Well, that does beat all ! But you’re just 
done out now, poor child ; come right in here ! 
I’m going to slip off your cloak, so, and lay you 
right down on the lounge and make you a good 
hot cup of coffee, and then you’ve got to take 
a little nap before the sleigh comes for you.” 

Almost before she knew Helen Armstrong 
was lying on the old chintz lounge with Mrs. 
Rawls’s gray shawl wrapped around her feet. 
The room was small, low-ceilinged, and home- 
ly, filled with evidences of daily occupation; 
nothing could be further removed from her 
own luxurious chamber, yet she felt an unwont- 
ed sensation of comfort which reached its 
height after the fragrant coffee had been swal- 
lowed, and Mrs. Rawls’s motherly hand had 
smoothed back the pillows for her. Helen 
caught the hand and held it tight in her own 
for a minute, before she turned over on one 
side and closed her eyes. It was years since she 
had been taken care of. It was she who planned 
and gave orders for the comfort of others, but 
she had no near relatives of her own, and hers 
had been the personal isolation which state and 
riches bring. 


[204] 


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With her eyes closed, she thought of many 
things; of her old school friend Anne Rhodes, 
whom she had always been fond of, yet with 
whom she had kept up but a spasmodic inter- 
course since marriage had claimed both lives. 

Most of Anne’s unfortunate wedded life had 
been spent in the far West, and when she 
came back four years ago in straitened circum- 
stances, with the child, the breadth of riches 
and a different way of living still divided them. 
But with the boy it was otherwise. The little 
fellow, with his blue eyes, his sunny smile, his 
trusting heart, and his infant manliness, had 
touched a chord that it half frightened Helen 
to feel vibrating so strongly. That chord be- 
longed to the far past — another child had made 
its harmony. A little grave had its depths in 
Helen’s heart, although she had kept it out of 
sight for many years; it almost scared her to 
feel that it was still there, and yet it was sweet, 
too. When she put her arms around little Silvy 
Rhodes, he was like an angel of resurrection. 
When she had taken him home in her carriage 
out of the wet snow not a week ago, his cheeks 
rosy red, his tongue chattering sweetly, his eyes 
looking at her so confidingly, she did not dream 
that it was for the last time. The mortal ill- 
ness had stolen upon him in the night, and Hel- 
en had gone to inquire, and then stayed to 
help. 


[205] 


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Somehow trouble brought back the old days 
when Anne had leaned on her for comfort and 
protection. Helen had always felt a nervous 
dread of a sick room, yet she had stayed, and 
was glad — glad of it! No one would ever 
know how many necessaries her money had 
supplied to the dying child and the stricken 
mother. ‘‘John Sylvester Rhodes, aged eight 
years.” The formal words glanced across her 
thoughts unbidden, and brought a sudden hot 
rush of tears. 

She wondered whether her husband was sur- 
prised that she had stayed away. Perhaps he 
didn’t even know it, they were together so lit- 
tle these days, and she remembered that he had 
gone on a journey about that syndicate. There 
would be nobody at home but Kathleen. 
Kathleen ! Her face reddened. Kathleen 
would have full scope in her absence. Hel- 
en wondered if she had taken advantage of 
it to see that man. No, the girl would do noth- 
ing underhand. It was unimaginable that a 
girl like Kathleen Armstrong, her husband’s 
sister, should have fallen in love with James 
Sandersfield, now the superintendent of the 
hat factory in which he had been a common 
“hand” for many years. How unfortunate 
that she had met him on that visit South 1 It 
could never have happened in their own town. 
Helen had felt deeply with her husband’s dis- 
[206] 


Not a Sad Story 


gust, for Kathleen had been immodestly ob- 
stinate; what the outcome would be they did 
not know; Helen grew hot with the thought. 
She had forgotten where she was till Mrs. 
Rawls’s voice came to her through the half-open 
door, crooning an old hymn tune in the kitchen ; 
and the tears came again to her eyes. The dear 
old soul — she thought, and then once more 
came the feeling of Silvy’s warm, chubby hand 
as he helped her over the slippery crossing — 
and Helen slept. 

“You needn’t go in there,” said Mrs. Rawls 
impressively, as one of her friends appeared an 
hour later. “Mis’ Armstrong’s asleep on the 
lounge. She’s clean beat out watchin’. I sent 
the coachman back to the stable when he came 
for her just now; I wouldn’t have her woke,” 

“It don’t seem possible that little Silvy’s 
gone,” said the newcomer in an awestricken 
voice. “I just come up the street now, and I 
could hardly get here for people stopping me 
to ask about it. Old Squire Peters himself 
halted the sleigh and sent Miss Isabel over to 
inquire. She said if there was anything in the 
world they could do, to let them know ; and she 
was goin’ home to fix up something that might 
tempt Mis’ Rhodes to eat, for I told them she 
hadn’t taken hardly a mouthful for the last two 
days. And you know them two ladies* in black 
that moved into the big house on the hill last 
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fall? One of them came up afterward and 
said, 

'You don't mean that that dear little boy 
with the blue eyes and yellow hair, who lived 
at the foot of the hill, is dead!' 

"And when I said yes, 'twas as true as Gos- 
pel, though the dear Lord alone knew why it 
was so, she looked almost as if she were cry- 
ing, and said, 'Oh, do you think his mother 
would mind if I sent her some flowers from our 
greenhouse? I don't know her at all, but we 
have had sorrow ourselves; and the dear little 
boy brought us some golden-rod just the day 
we came here — it seemed like a welcome to us." 

"I told her I would tell Mis' Rhodes 'twas 
for Silvy's sake." 

"What beats me," said another woman, who 
had joined the other two, "is why the Lord 
should take Silvy — 'the only son of his mother, 
and she a widow' — cut off that child before his 
time, and leave old Gran'pa Slade dodderin' 
'round, who is near ninety and ain't never been 
no good to nobody all his days. There's Ame- 
lia Slade with her own mother and sister to 
care for, an' him always a trouble. It does 
seem that the old might be taken before the 
young, when they just cumber the ground, like 
gran'pa." 

"Well, I don't think he's much care to Ame- 
lia, Mis' Beebe," said the first visitor, Mehit- 
[208] 


Not a Sad Story 


able Phelps. ‘'She's always grudged him his 
keep, as far as I see. Not but what he is 
tryin'." 

“Mis' Rawls! Mis' Beebe! Hitty Phelps!" 
cried another comer breathlessly. “Do some- 
body come over to Mis' Slade's; gran'pa's in a 
dreadful way, cryin' and moanin' about little 
Silvy's death. He says he'd oughter have been 
took instead, and that he's no good to anybody. 
'Melia's afraid he'll take his life; she never 
sensed before that he felt his age so." 

The three women gazed at each other with a 
scared expression as they rose to the summons. 
“Well, I presume it ain't his fault that he's let 
to live," said one. 

“I tell you what," said Mrs. Beebe. “I'll 
send Josiah around with the cutter to bring 
grandpa over to our house to spend the day 
and get a good dinner. All he needs is cocker- 
in' up; I don't believe he's had an outing in 
dear knows when, and a change will hearten 
him. You coming with us. Mis' Rawls?" 

“I'll just step along a piece to Emma Tay- 
lor's," said Mrs. Rawls, getting down her 
shawl from a hook. “I won't be gone a min- 
ute. I'd clean forgot the baby was sick." 

She glanced into the sitting-room, and then, 
closing the outer door noiselessly behind her, 
hurried up the street with her friends. 

She was welcomed at the little white cottage 
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Little Stories of Married Life 


where she stopped by a pretty, worn-looking 
young woman, who came to the door with a 
baby in her arms and two small children pull- 
ing at her skirts. 

“Oh, we’re all right,” she said cheerfully, 
in answer to Mrs. Rawls. “Come in; you’ll 
be surprised to see John around at this time of 
day — here he is now. He’s staying home a 
spell on account of Mrs. Rhodes. The Batchel- 
lor boys brought her wood, and Mr. Fellows’s 
coachman shoveled ofif the snow, but we 
thought she might like to feel there was a man 
waiting near to call upon if she wanted any- 
thing.” 

“Let me take the baby, Emma,” said her hus- 
band, “you’re tired, dear.” 

He stretched out his arms and took the child, 
holding the little white face fondly against his 
own bearded one. 

“Poor little man, he didn’t sleep much last 
night; kept us both awake; but we didn’t care 
a mite for that, we were so glad we had him. 
Do you see his light curls ? Emma and I think 
he has a look of Silvy, Mrs. Rawls.” 

“I don’t know but he has,” said Mrs. Rawls 
as she turned toward the outer world once 
more. 

“Must you go, Mrs. Rawls ? It was kind of 
you to stop in. If you see Mrs. Rhodes you’ll 
tell her, please, that John’s waiting home so’s 
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Not a Sad Story 


she can feel there's a man near her to call on if 
she wants for anything." 

''She's bound to be awake, now," thought 
Mrs. Rawls as she hurried home to her guest. 

Helen had wakened suddenly in the empty, 
quiet house. She could not, in a sort of sweet, 
drowsy contentment, understand at once where 
she was. She gradually realized that a big 
wooden clock on the mantel ticked with a loud, 
aggressive noise, that a teakettle was singing 
somewhere, and that a large faded red hood 
hung on the brown-papered wall directly in her 
line of vision, with a many-flowered pink gera- 
nium on a shelf below. She was closing her 
eyes once more when a loud knock on the outer 
door startled her instantly into a sitting posi- 
tion. The knock was followed by another, 
more tentative; then the door opened, and a 
footstep was heard inside. Helen jumped has- 
tily up and went toward the kitchen. 

A tall man stood there, drumming with his 
fingers absently on the table while he waited. 
He raised his head quickly as she entered, and 
she saw that he had a thin, clean-shaven face 
with firm lips and dark, steady eyes. His dress 
was the dress of a gentleman. Although Helen 
had never spoken to him, she knew that this 
was James Sander sfield. 

"I beg your pardon," he said stiffly, "I came 
for Mrs. Rawls. I was sent for Mrs. Rawls." 

[2II ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


“She must have gone out/' said Mrs. Arm- 
strong, “but I am sure that she will be back 
soon. The message — " 

“Is from Mrs. Rhodes," said the stranger, 
taking up his hat, “Mrs. Rhodes would like 
Mrs. Rawls to come over to her when she can." 

“Is she — " Helen began. 

“She is very quiet — very peaceful, I did not 
expect to see her this morning, but she had sent 
for me; she knew — " He bit his lip, and 
stopped as if it were very hard to go on; his 
steady eyes met hers with a certain piteousness 
in them. “I — I carried Silvy downstairs; she 
said I was so strong it was a comfort to her to 
have me do it." He stopped again and turned 
away his head. “I loved the child," he added 
after a minute, very simply. 

“I am glad you were with her; I know it was 
a comfort," said Helen. Her eyes roved over 
the man’s tall figure thoughtfully. “And I am 
glad that I was in to take your message, Mr. 
Sander sfield," she added a little coldly. “I am 
Mrs. Armstrong." 

“I know, I know," he replied with a gesture 
that was almost rough in its curtness. He 
stood as if he were about to speak further, then 
hesitated, and finally turned resolutely away. 
“Good morning," he said as he passed out of 
the door, but Helen did not answer. To her 
that pause had been strangely voiceful of Kath- 
[ 212 ] 


Not a Sad Story 


leen; she tingled to the very finger tips with 
the strong current of his thoughts. She could 
not tell whether she resented it or not. 

Mrs. Rawls was full of pleasure that her vis- 
itor had slept so long. The sleigh was once 
more waiting for Helen. ‘'Tell Mrs. Rhodes 
I will be with her later/’ she said as she tucked 
herself comfortably in, and lay back against the 
red velvet cushions. The glare of the sunshine 
on the snow dazzled her. 

“Ma’am,” said a voice in her ear. The 
coachman was waiting to let some teams pass. 
“Ma’am, may I speak to ye?” She turned, 
startled, to find a large, gaunt, bearded man 
standing beside her, with his big, hairy hand 
laid detainingly on the sleigh. His working 
clothes had all the color worn out of them. 

“What is it ?” asked Helen, drawing back. 

“As I come up I seen white crape and rib- 
bons on the door below, and I just heard ye 
speak her name, ma’am; it’s not the gay little 
felly with the light curls that’s dead ?” 

“Oh, it is,” cried Helen, the tears coming to 
her eyes. 

The man took ofif his hat and stood bare- 
headed in the snow, his lips moving, though 
Helen heard no sound. 

“He was one of the Lord’s own,” he said 
after a minute in a husky voice. “Sure He 
knows best. Not a day that little felly passed 
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us a-workin’ on the road but he had a word for 
each man! Sure he was known all over this 
town. ’Twas no more than a couple of weeks 
ago that he brought home Mike O'Brien’s little 
gell that was sitting in a puddle in Dean .Street, 
and she just free of the measles. Ma'am, my 
heart's sore for the boy's mother, and she a 
widdy. Would ye just tell her that me and me 
mates would turn our hands to any work for 
her for the boy's sake? Sure there's no other 
work a-doin' this weather." 

‘‘If you will come up to Lawndale this after- 
noon Mr. Armstrong will see about some em- 
ployment for you," said Helen hurriedly. “Do 
you know the place ? The big stone house with 
the pillars? Yes, that is right. And I will tell 
Mrs. Rhodes. Drive on, Benson." 

The richly-appointed, quiet mansion that she 
entered was a change, indeed, from the meager 
little house, sickness-crowded, where she had 
been watching for two days and nights, or from 
the homely room she had just left in the nurse's 
cottage. The velvet-shod silence seemed al- 
most an alien thing. Not in years had she felt 
so alive, so warm at the heart with other peo- 
ple's loves and sorrows brought close to it. 
Habit should not chill her yet into the indif- 
ferent self-centered woman whose cold manner 
and shy distrust of herself kept her solitary. 

She was glad when her maid asked her tim- 
[214] 


Not a Sad Story 

idly some question about little Silvy, and am 
swered with a cordiality that surprised herself, 
although she was always kind, taking note of a 
cold the girl had, and giving her some simple 
remedy for it. ''What is it, Margaret?'’ she 
asked, seeing that the girl lingered as if she 
wished to speak. 

Margaret hesitated. "Mrs. Armstrong, we 
do all be feelin’ so bad for the sweet child that’s 
gone. May the saints comfort his mother ! 
And I was thinking, ma’am, to-morrow is my 
day out, and if it’s not making too bold I could 
take my clean cap and apron with me and stay 
at the house to open the door for the people 
that’ll be troopin’ there — if you think I might, 
maybe. I know she’s a lady born, and ’twould 
be no more than she was used, to have things 
dacent.” 

"You are a good girl, Margaret,” said Helen, 
more moved than she cared to show. "Yes, in- 
deed, you shall go.” 

Kathleen came in later. Her cheeks were 
scarlet from the cold wind, her dark hair was 
tangled and blown, there was a rushing vigor 
in her movements as of exuberant young health 
and bounding impulse. She kissed her quiet 
sister-in-law impetuously and threw her cap 
and furs from her before she seated herself by 
the blazing wood fire. Helen looked at her 
from a new standpoint — she was trying to 
[ 215 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


fancy that glowing, tumultuous young beauty 
by the side of James Sander sfield’s rugged 
strength, trying to fancy his steady eyes gazing 
into those flashing ones. The feeling of repug- 
nance might be lessened, but it was still there ! 
Why, Kathleen had patrician written in every 
line of her face, in every curve of her body, in 
her least gesture. 

‘TVe just come from the Country Club,’’ 
said the girl, shielding her face with one slim 
hand from the blaze of the fire. 

‘‘What on earth could you do this morning? 
Play golf in the snow?” 

“Oh, we tried to, but it didn’t amount to any- 
thing. A lot of us got around the fire in the 
hall and talked. They said — But sister, 
aren’t you tired? Weren’t you up all night? 
Have you been home long?” 

“I did sit up all night,” said Helen, “but I 
am not tired, and I have been home for some 
time.” 

“And she — poor Mrs. Rhodes?” 

“I left her very quiet, dear.” 

“There !” said Kathleen stormily, “we could 
talk of nothing else this morning but darling, 
darling little Silvy, and of her. Of course they 
don’t all know Mrs. Rhodes, but every one had 
seen him, at any rate. It seems so dreadful for 
her to lose all she had in the world ! She isn’t 
very young, is she?” 

[2161 


Not a Sad Story 


‘'About my age, dear/’ 

“Well, that’s not old, of course, but still— 
What I can’t make out, sister, is why she should 
be afflicted in this way. Mrs. Harper had 
known her, like you, ever since she was a little 
girl, and she has had so many troubles; all her 
people died soon after she was married, and her 
husband was not — nice, and he lost all her 
money before he died, and she has always been 
so good and lovely and patient and uncom- 
plaining, so earnestly striving to do right, so 
that Mrs. Harper says she has been an example 
to everyone. Why should she have this ter- 
rible, terrible blow fall upon her ? Why should 
her sweet, darling little child be taken away? 
What has she done that she should be punished 
so ? It seems wrong — wrong ! I don’t under- 
stand it.” 

“I’m afraid I don’t, either,” said Helen very 
low. She put her hand on her heart for a min- 
ute and looked up, smiling a little wistfully. 
Her own trouble was so old that people had for- 
gotten it. 

“We nearly got crying,” pursued Kathleen, 
“all the girls, I mean. Harvey Spencer tried 
to make us laugh; he told jokes — horrid ones. 
Oh, how silly he was ! I hate society men. But 
it seemed as if we couldn’t get off the subject; 
first one thing brought it up, and then another. 
Everybody wants to do something for Mrs. 
[217] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


Rhodes. What I was going to tell you was 
that Mary Barbour said she believed that sweet 
little Silvy was taken because his mother made 
an idol of him; that you shouldn’t love anybody 
so much — that it was wrong. I don’t believe 
it, sister! I don’t believe it; you can’t love any- 
one too much ! People forget what love means, 
and it seems unnatural to them when we love as 
much as we can. Oh, you may look at me ! I 
think of a great, great many things I never tell. 
You and my brother Orrin, who have done 
everything and had everything, you think me 
silly and romantic, but I am wiser than you. 
It’s because you’ve forgotten. Why, there’s 
nothing but love that makes life worth living !” 
said young Kathleen, her voice thrilling 
through the room. ''I shall never try to love 
only a little, no matter what happens, but as 
much, as much, as much, always, as God will 
let me, if I die for it myself !” 

She went over to Helen and flung herself 
down on the floor beside her, and laid her head 
in Helen’s lap. 

"'He will let you,” said Helen with an un- 
steady voice. Something in her tone made the 
girl raise her head suddenly — their eyes met in 
a long look, and a deep rose overspread Kath- 
leen’s face before she hid it again. To the elder 
woman had come quite unbidden a picture of 
a man carrying tenderly in his strong arms the 

[2l8] 


Not a Sad Story 


white, still body of a little dead child. She 
would like to have told Kathleen if shyness had 
not held her tongue. After all, he did not seem 
quite unworthy. If Orrin thought — 

He made a grimace when she told him in the 
brief half hour they had together before she left 
the house. 

*'It is only the conclusion I had been coming 
to,'' he said. '‘There is nothing personally 
against the man; I almost wish there were. I 
knew Kathleen would be too much for us — 
Kathleen and love. But how she can want 
him, I cannot see." 

"Ah, but, Orrin, we don't either of us have 
to marry him," said his wife. "I have just 
found out that it's Kathleen's happiness, not 
ours, that is at stake. What are you looking 
at?" 

He had walked over to her dressing table, 
where there stood the faded photograph of a 
little child, with a vase of flowers near it. He 
gazed steadily at it without speaking. 

"I always thought this better than the large 
portrait," he said at last huskily. "You have 
not had it out in some time." 

"No," she replied, "the frame wanted repair- 
ing, and the picture had grown so dim I — I 
couldn't bear to see it, someway. But to-day 
— oh, Orrin, I have been so longing to have 
someone remember — " 


[219] 


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''I have never forgotten,” he said; ‘‘did you 
think that ? It is only that I am so busy, there 
are so many things that crowd upon me that I 
don’t get a chance to tell you. I gave a thou- 
sand dollars to the Children’s Hospital to-day 
for little Silvy’s sake — and our child’s. Why, 
Helen, Helen, Helen! Poor girl, poor girl. I’ll 
have to look after you more, I shall not allow 
you to go again to-night.” 

“But it has done me more good than any- 
thing else in this world,” said his wife. “I’ve 
been one of the dead souls in prison. It’s not 
for sorrow that I’m crying, Orrin, not for sor- 
row alone — oh, for so much else, dear! And 
now I must go, and I think my man is down- 
stairs for some work from you, and I’ll say 
good-by until to-morrow.” 

When Helen reached her friend’s house she 
found the clergyman just descending the steps. 
It was beginning to snow again in the dusk, 
and he buttoned his overcoat tightly around his 
spare figure as he came forward to assist her 
from the sleigh. 

“Mrs. Rhodes told me that she was expecting 
you,” he said. 

“Then have you seen her?” 

“Yes, for a few minutes.” He sighed and 
stood meditatively looking up the street. 
“Judge Shillaber has just been here. I was 
surprised to see him, he so seldom goes out, and 
[ 220 ] 


Not a Sad Story 

never seemed to take any interest in his neigh- 
bors. But perhaps I should not say that/’ he 
added hastily. ‘'Everyone must feel the blow 
that has fallen here; the circumstances are so 
peculiarly sad. The ways of the Lord are very 
mysterious.” As he spoke he raised his face, 
which was thin and careworn because the sor- 
rows of his people weighed very heavily upon 
him. “The ways of the Lord are very myste- 
rious. We must have faith, Mrs. Armstrong, 
more faith.” 

“Yes, indeed,” cried Helen, “I feel that.” 

“I would like to speak to you about — But 
I must not keep you out here. There is Mrs. 
Rawls. Another time !” He hurried off down 
the street, while Helen found herself drawn in- 
side the door by Mrs. Rawls and into the little 
dining-room, where the blinds were open some- 
what, now that the evening dusk had settled 
down. The room was warm and quiet, with a 
heavy perfume of flowers loading the air. 

“Such a time as weVe had !” said Mrs. Rawls 
in a loud whisper. “Me and Mis’ Loomis and 
Ellen Grant has just had our hands full seein’ 
people. Ellen’s as deaf as a post, but she would 
stay, and she set by the winder and let us know 
when she seen anyone cornin’ up the steps. Mis’ 
Dunham, she spelled us for a while. You never 
see anything like it in all your born days. Mis’ 
Armstrong! The hull town’s been here, and 
[221 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


carriages driving up, folks some of ’em Mis’ 
Rhodes didn’t even know, cornin’ to inquire or 
leave cards. There’s been port wine sent for 
her, and Tokay, and chicken broth, and jellies 
— I thought there’d been enough sent last 
week for him, but they’re cornin’ yet. What to 
do with ’em I don’t know, for she won’t touch 
nothin’. And there’s flowers, flowers, flowers ! 
— from them great white lilies from Colonel 
Penn’s greenhouse to a little wilty sprig o’ pink 
geranium that one of them colored children at 
tlie corner brought tied with a white ribbon, 
for 'little Marse Silvy’; the child was cryin’ 
when she came. I filled her full of broth and 
jelly before she went home. Some of the things 
has on ’em 'For Silvy’s mother’ — that pleases 
her best of all. And the dear child lies there so 
peaceful and sweet — She put the geranium by 
him herself. But she’s waitin’ in there to see 
you, I know.” 

Such a slender, drooping figure in its black 
garments that came to meet Helen ! Such pa- 
tience, such gentleness in the pale face! The 
tears rose once more to Helen’s eyes as she put 
her protecting arms around her friend and held 
her close in a long embrace. 

"I’m glad you’ve come,” said Anne Rhodes 
at last. "I want you to sit here by me, we shall 
be alone for a little while. There is something 
I want to say — while I can.” Her voice was 
[ 222 ] 


Not a Sad Story 


very sweet and low, and her tearless eyes were 
luminous. ‘'Let me take your hand — this one; 
it held my darling’s hand when he was dying. 
/ knew ! Dear hand, dear hand !” She held it 
close to her cheek. After a moment she went 
on. “Such love, such goodness ! I never 
dreamed of anything like it, that people should 
be so good. I want you to tell everyone — all 
who have done the least thing for my little 
child’s sake, yes, or who have wanted to do 
anything, that never while my life lasts — I hope 
it won’t be long — ^but never while it lasts will 
I forget them, never will I cease to ask God to 
bless them, ‘to reward them sevenfold into their 
bosom.’ I have been praying to-day, when I 
could pray, that He would teach me how to 
help others, that the world might be better be- 
cause my little child had lived in it, and I had 
had such joy. Helen, you will not forget?” 

“No,” said Helen. She drew her friend’s 
head to her shoulder, and they spoke no more. 
It grew darker and darker in the room where 
they sat, but in the next chamber the moonlight 
poured through an opening in the curtains and 
shone upon the lovely face of the child whose 
life had been a delight, whose memory was a 
blessing, whose death touched the spring of 
love in every heart, and, for one little heavenly 
space, made men know that they were brothers. 


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Wings 

A Study 
I 

I T was a lovely morning in the early sum- 
mer that Milly Clark's lover brought 
her the engagement ring with which 
she was also to be wedded some sweet day. It 
was a plain hoop of gold, with the word Miz- 
pah graven upon its inner side, not because 
there was any thought of parting between them 
then, but simply in accordance with a somewhat 
sentimental fashion of the day. Milly had been 
given her choice between the ring and a little 
padlocked bracelet of which Norton was to keep 
the key, after it had been safely fastened on her 
white wrist, and this, indeed, appealed to all the 
instincts of barbaric womanhood, in its sug- 
gestion of a lover's mastery; but the ring was 
the holier symbol, and the pledge of love eter- 
nal. 

The bees were buzzing around the syringa 
bushes in the comer of the old-fashioned gar- 
den, where the lovers stood looking out upon 
the road through the white fence which was 
built upon a stone wall, and covered with climb- 
ing roses. The road, shining in the sunlight, 
[227] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


sloped down to a bridge half hidden by chest- 
nut trees, and beyond was a glimpse of hills 
against the blue sky of June. The air, the 
countryside, the hum of unseen insects, con- 
tained that suggestion of joy unspeakable that 
comes only at this heavenly time of the year, 
but there were only the two by the garden wall 
to feel it in its perfection this morning. As far 
as the eye could see there was no other human 
being anywhere. At eleven o'clock in a New 
England village, after the marketing is seen to 
and mail time over, all self-respecting persons 
are at home behind the bowed green blinds of 
the white houses by the roadside, or at work 
farther off in the fields. For Milly and Norton 
to be out in the garden now was to be quite 
alone, and when he put his arm around her and 
drew her down beside him on the stone wall 
among the roses, she only smiled confidingly 
up into his face, and flushed sweetly as he 
kissed her. 

. ‘T can't seem to get used to it," she said. 

/'Get used to what, dear?" 

"Your — loving me." 

"I don't want you to get used to it!" he cried 
fervently. "I'm sure I never shall. Why, 
when we're quite old people it will be just the 
same as it is now. Love can never grow old — 
not ours, anyway. Can it, Milly!" 

She gave him a smile for answer and he 
[ 228 ] 


gazed down at her admiringly, taking note anew 
of the deep blue of her eyes, the little veins on 
her forehead, where the soft brown hair was 
drawn smoothly back from it, and the pure 
curve of her throat and chin — a face of the 
highest New England type, fine and beautiful. 
He himself was the product of a different civil- 
ization, and cast in a rougher mold. It was 
the very difference that had drawn them close 
together, his rude strength giving sweetest 
promise of protection to her delicate fineness. 
She sat silently looking at him, her soul steeped 
in a delicious dream. 

^‘Yes, we will be like this always,’’ she said 
at last with almost religious solemnity. 

‘‘Always,” he assented. 

“Only growing better and better all the time, 
Norton. I feel as if I could never be good 
enough to show how thankful I am that you 
love me. Do you think I ever can ?” 

“Hush,” he said, frowning. “You must not 
talk in that way. I’m only a stupid, common- 
place fellow at best, not half good enough for 
you. You’ll have to make me better.” 

“Oh, Norton!” she protested. 

“Ah, never mind now, dear! You haven’t 
put on my ring yet, Milly— remember it is not 
to come off until I have to put it on the next 
time — do you know when that will be ? When 
we are married, when you are mine, really and 
[229] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


forever. May that day soon come! Give me 
your hand now, dear, and let me ‘ring your fin- 
ger with the round hoop of gold,’ as you were 
reading to me last night.” 

“There is someone coming,” said Milly nerv- 
ously. She stood up as the shadow of a par- 
asol touched the roses, and met the gaze of the 
Episcopal clergyman’s wife, as she stopped to 
rest, panting a little, by the garden wall. She 
was a thin woman in a black and white print 
gown, and with a black lace bonnet trimmed 
with bunches of artificial violets surmounting 
her sallow face. 

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Milly?” she asked with 
a kindly inflection of her rather sharp voice. 
“And Mr. Edwards, too, of course. Well, 
good morning to you both. Isn’t it a perfect 
day ! A little hot in the sun though. It always 
tires me to walk up this hill; I have to stop a 
moment here to get my breath. I suppose 
you’re not going to the funeral, either of you? 
No, it’s not a bit necessary, but I fancied you 
might like to see the service performed as it 
should be for once.” 

“I did not know anyone had died,” said 
Milly. 

“My dear, it’s only a little boy from the poor- 
house. His relatives — such as he had — are not 
able to bury him, and Mr. Preston did want to 
show the parish what a properly conducted 
[230] 


Wings 


funeral was like. You know what a frightfully 
bigoted place this is! We had to give up can- 
dles altogether, Mr. Edwards. It fairly makes 
me shiver at times — the ignorance 1 I wonder 
— I do wonder, they don't knock the cross off 
the spire some day, because it’s a symbol. I 
wonder they even have a church, instead of a 
circus tent !” 

‘‘Oh, Mrs. Preston!” remonstrated Milly. 
She glanced sideways nervously at Norton, 
who was picking a rose to pieces with an imper- 
turbable expression. 

‘'You will hear the choir boys at any rate as 
they march in procession around the grave,” 
pursued Mrs. Preston, raising her parasol 
again. “I don’t suppose there will be a soul 
there but ourselves. Well, I put on my best 
bonnet, anyway, out of respect — I know you 
will both be glad when I’m gone, although 
you’re too polite to say so-.” 

She relaxed into a quizzical smile as she re- 
garded them. “Well, good-by.” 

“Thank Heaven! she’s gone at last,” said 
Norton with boyish petulance, as they watched 
her disappear behind the evergreens that bor- 
dered the churchyard. “What possessed her to 
give us so much of her society just now — the 
very wrong moment, wasn’t it, dear ? She has 
left me only a quarter of an hour before the 
noon train to town, and I’ll not be back until 
[231 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


Monday, you know, this time. To think that 1 
shall be working for you now, Milly — for a 
sweet girl in a blue dress, with a dimple in one 
cheek and long brown lashes that droop lower 
and lower as I — oh, you darling!’’ They both 
laughed in joyously blissful content. 

“Shall I put the ring on now ?” he asked after 
a few moments. “Stand up beside me, then. 
There, that is right. This is our betrothal, 
Milly. Say the words, dear, since you would 
have them, while I slip on the ring.” 

“Let us say them together. Oh, Norton, it 
is to be forever I” 

“Forever. Give me your dear hand. Now 
with me. The Lord’ — The Lord,’ ” — her clear 
voice mingled with his deep one. “The Lord 
watch — between thee — and me — when we are 
parted — (but we never shall be!) when we 
are parted — the one from the other.” The ring 
shone on her finger, their lips met in a long 
kiss. He caught her to him and laid her head 
upon his breast and her arms around his neck, 
and they stood thus, silently, while the seconds 
passed. What power was in those words of 
might to bring a sudden hush upon both hearts, 
and to change the sunshine into the awesome, 
beautiful light of another world? Something 
deeper, nobler, purer than they stirred those 
two souls, and made them sacredly, divinely 
one. Each felt intensely what neither could 
[232] 


Wings 


have expressed. Never, while life lasted, could 
the witness of that moment be forgotten. 

Long after her lover had left her Milly sat in 
the garden, her face half hidden in the roses, 
with the bees still booming around the syringas, 
and the sky growing bluer and bluer in the heat 
of noon. She heard the choir boys singing now 
in the little churchyard near by as they marched 
around the open grave, 

** Brief life is here our portion, 

Brief sorrow, shortlived care. 

The life that knows no ending. 

The tearless life, is there. 

Oh happy retribution. 

Short toil, eternal rest! 

For mortals and for sinners, 

A mansion with the blest.'^ 

The words brought her no realization of the 
shortness of human life, of inevitable sorrow, 
of impending care, and no remembrance of the 
dead pauper child, or of the open grave — they 
only served to add to the fullness of her bliss 
the thought that after all this measureless hap- 
piness of earth, there was still the joy of heaven 
beyond. 

II 

I T was only a few weeks after their betrothal 
that Norton sailed for Australia on that 
long journey from which he did not re- 
turn for three years. The trip was to make his 
fortune, and fortune meant a home and Milly 
[233] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


for his own; so neither rebelled, and, indeed, it 
was only intended at first that he should stay 
away a year. In the first ardor of romance 
parting seemed but a little thing — two hearts 
like theirs could beat as one with a continent 
between them. And love shows sweetly in dif- 
ferent lights; the purple shadows of impending 
separation gave it a deeper, richer glow. 

She took a little journey in from the country 
to see him off, and they talked of this before- 
hand as of something ' quite festive, although 
there proved to be a bewildering hurry and bus- 
tle about it that mixed everything up in a whirl. 
Mrs. Preston went with her, and there was a 
disjointed attempt at conversation on the deck 
of the steamer with some of Norton’s friends 
who had also come to see him off, and the ex- 
amination with them, amid laughter and jokes, 
of Norton’s tiny stateroom, and the few mo- 
ments there when, lingering behind, the two 
kissed each other good-by, and, the veil of pre- 
tense ruthlessly torn aside, Milly felt a sudden 
terrible spasm of heartbreak. 

‘'I cannot let you go — I cannot !” she sobbed, 
and her lover had to loosen her arms from 
around his neck and dry her eyes with his hand- 
kerchief, whispering soothing words, and then 
she must be led out into the glaring sunlight 
and turn her face away from the group of 
friends, while her hand still lay in Norton’s. 
[234] 


And then the bell rang — the signal for parting 
— and then — do we not know it all ? The last 
look Irom the pier at the beloved face, and then 
the slow watching, watching until the vessel is 
out of sight and the vision is filled with green 
overlapping waves, and afterwards the walk 
back again along the wharf, among bales and 
vans of plunging horses, out into the world of 
dusty streets and houses, and the midsummer 
sights and smells, and the busy, empty life that 
is left. 

Milly was grateful to Mrs. Preston for not 
talking. She blindly let herself be piloted any - 
where to find that she was at last ensconced 
in a hurrying train proceeding homeward 
through a green landscape, with freshly cooler 
air blowing in through the open window to 
soothe her aching head. When they reached 
the village in the dusk it was Mrs. Preston who 
walked home with her up the long hill (and, 
oh, the going home when the one we love most 
has just left it) and answered all the questions 
that were showered upon both, and afterward 
went upstairs to Milly’s room and saw that the 
girl put on a loose gown to rest in, and made 
her drink the cup of tea she had brought up. 
She gave Milly a little kiss, “like a peck,’' 
thought Milly, suddenly alive to the remem- 
brance of those other kisses, and after the elder 
woman had left, she slipped from the bed 
[235 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


where she had even submitted to have her feet 
covered, and went over to the window and knelt 
down by it with her head on the sill almost in 
the branches of the maple tree through which 
she could see the moon rising in golden quiet. 
He was looking at the same moon now, and 
the Lord was watching between them. She 
pressed the ring to her lips, she pressed it to 
her bosom — the ring that made her his — joy 
flooded back upon her with the thought. She 
had forgotten that she could speak to him 
still, that she could write. 

Oh, quick, quick, lose not a moment; it was 
treachery to have a thought in her soul and he 
not know it ! Down on her knees in the moon- 
light she wrote, and wrote, and wrote, all that 
she never could have said — her very heart. 

She woke to joy the next morning, still in 
this consciousness of new-found power, and 
with a high ideal of the life before her. She 
was to grow and grow that she might be wor- 
thy of him — that she might help him grow to 
be worthy of the highest. Every minute of the 
day she could live for him, just as in every min- 
ute of the day he was living for her. She went 
about her daily tasks with renewed energy, be- 
cause he was thinking of her while she per- 
formed them. Even during little Letty Ste- 
vens’s tedious music lesson she smiled, think- 
ing how she would write him that the child’s 
[236] 


Wings 


halting five-finger exercise counted itself out to 
her in the words, ‘'How I love you, how I love 
you, how I love you, how I love you, dearT 

She had a little note from him by the pilot 
boat, written a few hours after they had parted; 
how little it seemed after all she had thought 
and felt in this twenty-four hours! But it 
made the color rise in her soft cheeks, and she 
cried over it and wore it next her bosom by 
day and laid it under her pillow by night. For 
many long weeks it was the only message from 
him that she had to feed on. The mail does 
not come quickly from Australia. She had sent 
off pages and pages to him in the two or three 
months before his first letter came, and it was 
much longer before she had an answer to hers. 
How she studied those letters — simple, almost 
boyish effusions — full of wondering pride in 
those that she wrote to him. 

“Why, you are a real poetess, Milly; I don’t 
see how you manage to think of such things. I 
wish I had been thinking of you at the time 
you speak of, but Fm afraid that must have 
been when I was staying at Jackson’s, and he 
and Blessington and I played cards every even- 
ing; awfully poor luck I had, too. I suppose 
I must have been thinking of you, after all, and 
that’s what made me play so badly, don’t you 
believe it? No, I don’t do much reading out 
here ; you’ll have to do the reading for both of 
[237] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


us, and you can tell it all to me when I get 
home. When I get home. Oh, Milly ! I can’t 
write about it as you do, but I’m working for 
my sweet, sweet girl with all the strength I’ve 
got.” 

The girl bloomed as she never had before 
with this quickening of her soul. The days 
were so full of duties; her music scholars, the 
household matters, in which she helped her 
widowed aunt, the two young cousins to be 
looked after, her reading, and, when she could 
attend them, the weekday afternoon prayers at 
the little church where she sometimes, with the 
sexton, represented all Mr. Preston’s congrega- 
tion. Milly’s people were of the Congrega- 
tional faith, but Norton and she had gone to St. 
John’s together. People found fault with Mr. 
Preston — a rather dull man with impassive 
wooden features — because he had no variety of 
expression; he read service and sermon in a 
low monotonous voice which, however, grew 
to have a soothing charm for Milly. Why need 
anyone express anything? It was all in herself 
— other people’s expression only jarred. Those 
few moments in the half light of the empty 
church gave a sense of peace that was an actual 
physical rest, undisturbed by the personality 
of others. She was even guilty of slipping 
from the church afterwards to avoid Mr. Pres- 
ton’s perfunctory handshake. 

[238] 


Wings 


Then, after each quickly-passing day, came 
the long evening when in her little white room 
she wrote to him — wrote to Norton, her own, 
own lover. Ah, what fire there can be in the 
veins of a little Puritan girl ! 

So the swift winter passed and the spring 
came around again, and he had not returned. 

Then came hours when the sense of separa- 
tion began to press more heavily upon her, 
when the soft breeze wearied her and the com- 
mon roadside flowers brought tears to her 
eyes — especially when the Australian mail was 
long delayed. It was in a mood of this kind 
that she went one day to see Mrs. Preston, 
whose sharp features relaxed at the sight of 
her. Mrs. Preston was sitting in the front 
parlor by the window, with her sleeves rolled 
up a little, and a gingham apron tied around 
her waist, beating up eggs in a large bowl. 

''Come in,’’ she called cheerfully to Milly. 
"I just saw Mrs. Furniss go past; she looked 
as if she thought I was committing one of the 
seven deadly sins when she discovered that I 
was beating my eggs in here. The aborigines 
consider a parlor a sacred thing, you know. It’s 
the pleasantest place in the whole house this 
morning, and this lilac bush is budding. It’s 
spring again, for certain.” 

"Yes,” said Milly listlessly. 

"I’m making custard for dessert to-morrow ; 

[ 239 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


the bishop's coming. He always says, ‘Mrs. 
Preston, it's such a relief to reach your house 
and get sponge cake and syllabub, instead of re- 
lays of pie!' You know the poor, dear man 
has the dyspepsia terribly, and you New Eng- 
land people have no mercy on him. I'm glad 
he's coming to-morrow, it gives me something 
more to do ; one must work in the spring, or die. 
If this weather keeps on I'll get at the garret. 
What is the matter with you this morning, 
Milly?" 

“I'm tired," said Milly with a quiver of her 
lip. 

“Work.’' 

“I have worked ! I'm busy all the time, but 
it doesn't do any good. It's hard to have Nor- 
ton away for so long. I can't help feeling — " 
she stopped a moment and looked very hard 
out of the window. “I'm afraid I'm beginning 
to get — melancholy about it." She was trying 
to smile, but a bright tear fell in her lap. 

“I don't think you're very unhappy," said 
Mrs. Preston. She put the bowl of eggs down 
on the table and folded her thin arms. “It's 
the luxury of grief that you're enjoying — ^part 
of the romance. Be melancholy — as you call 
it — while you can." 

“You are always so cheerful," said Milly 
rather resentfully. 

“I, my dear! I don't dare to be anything 
[240] 


Wings 


else. I have to be cheerful, or — She turned 
a darkening face to the budding lilacs. ‘'I 
don’t dare to think long enough to be depressed, 
to even — remember. There’s an awful abyss 
down which I slip when / get melancholy; it’s 
the bottomless pit. I know it’s there all the 
time, but I have to pretend to myself that I’m 
not near it, or I get dragged under. I avoid 
it like the plague!” A momentary spasm con- 
tracted her face; she added in a lower tone, 
‘'Did you know that I had four children once? 
They died within a year.” 

“Oh, you poor thing!” cried Milly. She 
reached forward and tried to take one of the 
fast-locked hands of the woman before her. 
“Oh, how terrible, how terrible! How did 
you live?'' 

“I didn’t; all the best part of me went too, 
this thing you see here — ” she stopped, and the 
same shiver as before went over her. 

“But you have your husband,” said Milly, 
seeking about for comfort. A vision of Mr. 
Preston, stiff, dull, formal, with his wooden 
features, fronted her confusingly. 

“Yes, that’s the worst of it — if I only had 
not William!” 

“Oh, Mrs. Preston!" cried Milly. 

“I suppose it is surprising. After having 
bored each other for so many years, we really 
ought to be very much attached, don’t you 
[241 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


think? Perhaps even you can see how much : 
comfort I get from William. If I were an 
article of the Rubric, instead of a woman — but 
of course, that is different.'' 

“But you must have loved him when you | 
were married," cried Milly, shocked. 

“Did I, dear? I loved something that went 
by his name, it wasn't William. There, don't 
let us talk of it; I find no fault. He should | 

have been a celibate priest; I agree with him j 

there. He has never really cared for me, or for j 

— the children." The spasm passed over her | 

face again. “Oh, if I did not have him, if I i 

were not tied to this narrow round which j 

chokes every higher instinct of me, if I could 
go off somewhere by myself, to California or 
Egypt, or Cathay — travel, travel, travel, keep 
going on and on, seeing something new every , 
hour, breathing freer every day, getting out 
into the great life of the world !" She clenched 
her hands. “I have given my life, my aspira- 
tions, the whole strength of my being, to Wil- 
liam, and now I have nothing left — but Wil- 
liam." 

“You have four children in heaven," said j 
Milly softly. ' 

The elder woman broke down into a fit of 
weeping that seemed to rend her. Milly sat 
by, appalled at this glimpse of the inner life of 
two respectable married people. Later, as she 
[242] 


Wings 


was going home, she met Mr. Preston, his tall, 
thin figure in its clerical garb silhouetted 
against the bright green of the spring foliage. 
His pale eyes gazed solemnly at her as he drew 
near across the fields ; she felt that he might be 
murmuring Credos, or even Aves, quite obliv- 
ious of her presence. But he reached the bars 
in time to let them down for her, and offer her 
the handshake from which she had been wont 
to flee, and then stood a moment as if he would 
have spoken, while she gazed at him furtively. 
Could any woman put her arms around that 
stiff neck or kiss those thin, set lips ? Oh, poor 
Mrs. Preston ! But he was really speaking. 

“I saw you in the distance and I stopped to 
pick these for you,’’ he said in his slow, even 
tone. It was a little bunch of violets that he 
held out to her. 

‘‘Oh, Mr. Preston, thank you !” said Milly in 
wonder. 

“It is a pleasure to me that you attend our 
services. If — ” he paused, “if my daughter 
had lived she would have been your age — like 
you, in her springtime.” 

He gazed past her solemnly and then taking 
off his hat to her, went on his way, leaving 
Milly overpowered with bewilderment. 

What did it all mean? Who was right, and 
who was wrong? How did people drift apart 
after they were married ? A new idea of the 
[ 243 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


complexity of life came to her, the strange way 
in which human beings acted on each other, 
drawn, as by magnets, with the differing forces. 
Marriage to her had always presented a picture 
of growth in happiness, growth in goodness, a 
path upward together for lover and beloved. 
She tried now and for the first time vainly to 
recall if any in her limited circle of acquaint- 
ance seemed to fulfill these conditions. Sor- 
didness, narrowness, selfishness, a jealous love 
of one’s children, these stood revealed instead 
to the casual eye. 

She wrote a long page in her journal letter 
that night. His answer came back at last. It 
said : “Don’t bother your head, dear, about 
these things. You will always be the dearest 
girl in the world to me, and the purest and the 
best; and as for me, I never forget that I’m 
working for you, and if that won’t keep me 
straight, nothing will. What do you care about 
those old fossils of Prestons, anyhow ? You are 
you, and I am I, and that’s ail I care for, sweet- 
heart.” 

The wealth of meaning with which Milly 
freighted these honest lines it would take pages 
to chronicle; perhaps it was partly on account 
of some words of Mrs. Preston’s which haunt- 
ed her: “I loved something that went by his 
name — it wasn’t William.” 

The clergyman’s family remained in her 
[ 244] 


Wings 


mind an unsolved problem; it was nearly a 
month before she went to the rectory again, 
where she found Mrs. Preston “up to her ears,'' 
as she expressed it, endeavoring to settle the 
affairs of a poor family who were preparing 
for emigration to the West. Her snapping 
black eyes and vivacious mien showed thorough 
enjoyment of the task, to say nothing of her 
dominant volubility. Mr. Preston, who came 
in from the garden bearing the first strawberry 
solemnly on a gilt plate for his wife's accept- 
ance, was unheeded until Milly directed atten- 
tion to him. He had been waiting, he ex- 
plained gravely, some days for this particular 
strawberry to ripen. Mrs. Preston said, “Oh, 
yes," and thereupon ate the fruit absent-mind- 
edly as she went on talking, with apparently 
no more appreciation of flavor than if it had 
been gutta percha, and quite ignoring the giver. 

Milly could not help smiling, but she left the 
house more bewildered than ever. Mrs. Pres- 
ton must like her life more than she thought 
she did, and it was impossible not to feel a little 
tinge of sympathy for Mr. Preston. Did peo- 
ple after all know what they really liked — or, 
indeed, what they really were ? The moods of 
different days, of different hours, what kind of 
a whole did they form ? 

Her own life seemed to be all question in 
these days, to which nobody gave the answer. 
[245] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


Thus the second year stole on, and Norton's 
home-coming appeared to grow no nearer. The 
photograph which he sent her startled by its un- 
likeness to her thought of him; those were the 
eyes that were to look into hers again some day, 
those the lips that were to kiss hers. After a 
while by much poring over it, the picture 
looked to her any way she pleased. 

‘‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder" — 
possibly, and possibly not always fonder of the 
unseen beloved, but of one's own personality, 
projected into the suitable position. 

But if any moment of serious doubt came, 
the remembrance of the betrothal in the gar- 
den quenched it. There w^as always that to 
fall back upon. Milly lived that over again, 
and again, and again, never without the solemn 
rush of feeling that had accompanied the 
pledge with God for their witness — “never to 
be forgotten, never to be denied" — the latter 
words Norton had himself used in a letter to 
her once, a letter from which she never parted. 

With love came at last the teaching of death 
to Milly, and she went down into the shadows 
and cried out affrighted. All props were torn 
away from her, and she stood alone trembling, 
reaching out on the right hand and on the left. 
“I had not thought it meant this," she wrote 
piteously. “I believe in God, and in heaven, 
why, then, should this desolation touch me? 

[246] 


Wings 

Words — words that I have said all my life and 
believed in, mean nothing to me. I believe in 
them now, but they mean nothing. I can’t 
make anything real but death, not even your 
love! Oh, help me, tell me that I shall not die 
alone, that you will go with me, tell me that you 
are not afraid; help me, Norton. You must 
know something to make it all better I” 

She had gained some peace before his reply 
reached her — a sense of the eternal Fatherhood 
that pervaded the unseen world as well as the 
one she walked and lived and loved in now — 
a protection that was a rest and brought light 
into the sunshine once more. But he wrote, 
‘'Milly, if you love me, don’t send me any 
more letters like the last. To think of such 
things would drive me mad. I can’t think of 
death. It’s as much as I can do to work for a 
living, and try and be worthy of you, and I’ll 
have to leave the rest to the good Lord, I ex- 
pect. I’ll be coming home some day before you 
know it — drop me a line to tell me how you’d 
feel if you saw me walking in just after you get 
this.” 

If there was a graver look in Milly’s eyes 
than had been, there was also a sweeter depth. 
The lines around her mouth were very gentle. 
She did not talk much. It w^as the third sum- 
mer of the separation; she no longer tried to 
solve the problem of the Prestons, but accepted 
[247] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


the fact that she stood a little nearer to each of 
them than anyone else did. People said she 
was a good listener, but although she seemed to 
give a quiet attention to them, it was the voice 
across the sea that she was always listening for. 
The letters came now so full of matters and 
people that she knew nothing of; the whole 
burden of them for her lay in the few loving 
sentences that began and ended the pages. Had 
she ever had a lover ? It was so long ago, and 
for so short a time! Yet at last she had word 
that he was coming home. 

It was after this news had reached her, and 
nearly three years from the day of the reveal- 
ing of love in the garden, that the second rev- 
elation was given her. This time it was of 
immortality. 

She was kneeling in the church during the 
afternoon service; the church was almost 
empty. She had had a singularly calm spirit 
all day, and as she knelt in the dim aisle, her 
gaze directed upward to the stained glass win- 
dow in one of the arches of the ceiling, she 
was not praying, she was only peaceful. The 
window was partly open, so that a glimpse of 
pale blue sky slanted through it with the after- 
noon sunshine. And as she gazed, not con- 
sciously, her spirit went from her and mingled 
with that sunlight, becoming one with it, and 
in a rapture of buoyancy, of radiance, of ex- 
[248] 


Wings 


ultant immortality. It had in it no acknowl- 
edged perception of God, no conviction of sin, 
no so-called ‘'experience’'; it was simply life 
eternal, utterly free from the body, the spirit 
divested of the hampering bonds of the flesh. 
The wonder of it, the joy of it — yet the won- 
derful and joyful familiarity with it, as of 
something known always, that had been only 
forgotten for a little while, and was now re- 
membered; and beyond and through all some- 
thing indescribable. One cannot translate the 
meaning of life into words that belong to mor- 
tality. 

Milly bowed her head and the light closed 
over her and her spirit came back to her body 
once more. She neither wept nor trembled; 
like Mary of old she marveled and was silent. 
She thought she would write it all to Norton, 
but she could not; she thought to tell him when 
he came, but she did not. She never had the 
revelation again, but like the first it could never 
be forgotten nor denied. 


Ill 

were married at St.John’s a couple 
of months after his return. Mr. Preston 
united them in the bonds of holy matrimony 
with his still unvarying wooden gravity, 
through which, however, Milly was able to dis- 
[ 249 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


cern some faint, limited attempt at warmth, 
and Mrs. Preston folded her in her arms after- 
wards with a scoflfing fondness that rather 
troubled the bride when she thought of it. She 
did not want to think now of spoiled lives. 
Something in Mrs. Preston’s manner implied — 
could it be pity? 

It had been delightful after three years of 
maiden dreaming and shadowy aspiration to be 
carried forcibly out of them into a clear, cheer- 
ful, masculine territory where things seemed to 
be exactly what they were. The charm of hav- 
ing a lover who was almost a stranger, yet 
whom it was taken for granted must be both 
dear and familiar, was nearly too bewildering. 
She laughed at absurd jokes, was betrayed into 
demonstrative foolishness, and could scarcely 
believe in her own metamorphosis. She was 
in a state of suppressed excitement which must 
be happiness. 

‘T hardly knew you when I saw you coming 
in the gate,” she confessed one day soon after 
his arrival. ''Think of it ! I ran and hid.” 

"You did not hide long,” he answered grave- 
ly, taking a hairpin from her smooth locks. 
"Let your hair down, I want to see if it has 
grown.” 

"Norton! how silly. Are you always like 
this?” 

"Certainly.” 

[ 250 ] 


Wings 


''But I want to tell you of so many things 
that I could not write when you were away. 
Oh, Norton, the years have been short, yet they 
were so very, very long, too ! There is so much 
I have to confess to you — how shall I ever 
begin?'’ 

"Don't try," he answered laconically. 
"Leave all that time out, Milly, I hate it. We'll 
begin fresh now." He drew a long breath. "It 
was a hard, coarse life out there — you couldn't 
even understand it, sweetheart. But one thing 
I can tell — " he turned around and faced her 
with steadfast gaze — "I can look you straight 
in the eyes, dear, and not be ashamed." 

"Why, of courser said Milly. 

And so the new life began. A few months 
after the wedding they went to live in a narrow 
street in the great city, away from all the dear 
lovely hills and fields and sky that had hitherto 
made Milly's world. She was surprised to find 
that the dreary outlook on brick and stone af- 
fected her like a physical blow, and that she 
missed familiar voices strangely. She had 
often and often thought that she would be 
willing to live with Norton in a desert, and 
forego all other companionship than his, which 
necessarily must be satisfying. Was it ? Grad- 
ually, very gradually, but surely, a sinking of 
the heart, a gnawing homesickness began to 
take possession of her — the homesickness of 
[251 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


one transplanted in body and mind to an 
alien soil; a feeling fiercely combated, fiercely 
denied, yet conquering insidiously. To many 
women — to most women, perhaps — ^there is 
no medium between worshiping and delicately 
despising the man they love. They must either 
look up or down; anything but a level view, 
with clear eyes meeting, and the honest admis- 
sion: Dear friend, my insufficiency balances 
thine. What thou art not to me, that other 
thing I am not to thee. 

But it is torture not to be able to look up! 
The sense of superiority is only a sting. 

Milly took life with intense earnestness. She 
could not understand Norton’s light, jocular 
way of looking at things ; he cared for nothing 
‘"improving,” he simply wanted recreation. He 
loved her — yes, as much, she thought, sadly, 
as he could have loved any woman, but not, oh, 
not as she loved! She missed so much, so 
much ! Each day brought a subtle shock of dis- 
appointment with it, a miserable feeling of loss. 
What could she do about it ? She tried vainly 
to adjust her vision to the man’s point of view. 
Her husband seemed to her shallow, coarse, 
with no high standard of honor. It must be 
her mission to elevate him. 

The more unsatisfied her mind became, the 
more her heart endeavored to make up for it. 
“You are not what I dreamed — but kiss me, kiss 
[252] 


Wings 


me more passionately that I may forget it!’’ 
was the continued inner cry. But kisses do not 
grow more passionate under the insistent claim. 

She prayed for him with a hysterical uplift- 
ing of the spirit, followed by fathomless ex- 
haustion and depression. He was always very, 
very kind to her when she wept — and very glad 
to get away. 

She relapsed into an obedient endurance, a 
patient and uncomplaining disapproval. 

There seemed to be nothing in him of the 
man she had married except a certain sweet 
boyishness that had always been one of his 
charms, and which showed at times through 
everything, and a bright, yet delicate kindness 
which other people liked, although to her it had 
no depth. Sometimes she felt a little envious 
of his ease with others. 

‘'How you talked to Mrs. Catherwood to- 
night,” she said one evening after the guests 
had gone. “You quite monopolized her. I 
wonder what she thought of you 1” 

“Oh, that was all right !” he answered some- 
what absently. Then he looked up with a smile. 
“What do you think? I found that she came 
from the town I used to live in. I knew her 
sister well. We went back over old times.” 

“You never talk to me about them.” 

“You — oh, that’s different; you wouldn’t 
be interested, dear.” He shook his head with a 
[253] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


kind of rueful amusement. ‘'I always feel 
when I tell you of such things that you are 
wondering how I could enjoy them. It came 
sort of easy to talk to Mrs. Catherwood — she 
seemed to understand; some people do make 
you feel that way, you know.” He looked up 
a little sadly, and then came over to his wife 
and kissed her. ''You’re a saint, Milly, and 
saints are not expected to take stock in vain 
jestings. You have to be good for both of us, 
you know.” 

Milly flushed angrily. "I wish you wouldn’t 
say such things — you take such a low view! 
And I wanted you to see something of Pro- 
fessor Stearns to-night, he is such a fine man, 
so thoroughly high-minded, so firm in principle, 
he never gives way an inch in what he thinks 
is right. How people dislike him for it! It’s 
really splendid.” 

Norton looked humorous, but discreetly held 
his peace. 

"I tell you, Jordan,” he said one day to a 
friend, half sadly, half jestingly, "my wife 
wants me to be a good woman, to like all the 
things she likes, and to do all the things she 
does. I know she mourns over me every day 
of her life. I suppose it’s a hopeless job for 
both of us. I never was anything but a com- 
monplace sort of fellow, not near good enough 
for her.” 


[254] 


Wings 


‘‘That is the proper frame of mind, old fel- 
low/' said his friend, and they went on riding 
together in silence. 

To what end had the higher life been Mil- 
ly's? In five years she and Norton had been 
drifting slowly but surely ever further apart. 
Had companionship with her elevated him? 
Impossible not to see that he had deteriorated, 
that the lax hold on former ideals had lapsed 
entirely ! 

Can any human soul thrive in an atmosphere 
of doubt ? 

It was when this knowledge of further sep- 
aration lay heaviest upon her, that word came 
to Milly one morning in the bright sunlight 
that Norton had been arrested for embezzle- 
ment and was in jail. Her heart stood still. 
This, then, was what she had been foreboding 
all along; the instantaneous conviction of his 
guilt was the cruel blow. Oh, the awful, aw- 
ful wrench of the heart, when disgrace lays its 
hand on one we love! Death seems an honest, 
joyful thing in comparison. Yet she could 
think of a thousand extenuations for him — 
she found herself yearning over him as she 
might have done over the children that had 
never been hers. 

She prayed all the way to jail. How often 
she had read of similar journeys — the prisoner 
was always “sitting on the side of his bed," in 
1 255] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


the cell. Norton was sitting on the side of his 
bed ; his face was turned away as she came in. 
She sat down beside him and took his hand. 
‘‘Norton!'' she said and yet again, “Norton!" 
and he turned and looked at her. 

“I knew you would come," he said, “and I 
knew — you would think — I had done it." 

“Oh, Norton, Norton! Say only that you 
did not, and I will believe you." 

“You will believe — if I tell you — that I am 
not — a thief? What would a thief's word be 
good for, Milly ? Do I have to tell such a thing 
to my own wife? Why, even that poor Irish 
woman you can hear crying in the next cell be- 
lieves in her husband; you should have heard 
her talking before you came — and he's a brute." 

Milly gasped painfully, the tears were run- 
ning down her cheeks. “You know you always 
thought some things honest that I did not — 
some transactions — we have often talked — ^how 
could I tell — " 

“You had your ideas and I had mine," he 
interrupted. “It's mighty hard to conduct 
business on abstract principles — perhaps — I 
don't deny it ! My ways weren't always what 
they ought to have been. But this is stealing. 
It somehow kills me to think that you — " he 
stopped short with a gesture, and hid his face 
in his hands. 

Milly longed to put her arms around him, to 
[256] 


Wings 


kiss the hands that hid him from her, to do any- 
thing to show her love and grief, and her faith 
in him, but she did not dare. This was her hus- 
band, but she did not dare. 

He spoke quite calmly after a few minutes. 
‘‘You had better go back to the house now. 
My arrest was all a stupid blunder; I sent for 
Gather wood at once, and he saw Forrest. They 
are on the right track and I will be set free as 
soon as possible, to-morrow, probably; the 
charge is to be withdrawn. And don’t feel so 
badly, dear, I suppose it’s all my fault that you 
have never believed in me since we were mar- 
ried — for you never have, Milly.” He stooped 
and kissed her good-by, saying gently, “You 
must go now, dear.” 

Three days after that he came home very ill. 
All that Milly had been longing to say to him, 
all that she had been longing to hear, must wait 
until the morrow — until the next week — until 
the next month; and then, and then, could it 
be ? Until the next life ! 

He was so very ill from the beginning that 
there was nothing else to be considered; for 
the first time her own wishes and feelings were 
as naught. In the delirium he did not even 
know her. But there came a time before the 
end when she was startled as she sat by him in 
the twilight, holding his wasted hand to see 
his conscious eyes fixed upon her through the 
[ 257 ] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


shadows. Her own responded with a depth 
of piteous eager love in them as she bent closer 
to him. Still the eyes gazed at her — what, oh, 
what were they saying ? 

''Darling,'' she whispered. 

His lips did not move, but the fingers of the 
hand which lay in hers felt feebly for some- 
thing — touched the golden circle on her finger, 
and held it as if contented at last. 

And still the eyes — 

It was again the moment of their betrothal, 
and God was with them as in the garden. 

*^1 *ATE in the moonlight, the tender 
g 1 A moonlight of June, Milly sat alone 
by a grave. The soft night wind touched 
her face, the smell of countless budding flowers 
was around her. It was again the beautiful 
youth of the year, the time of love, and for her 
youth and love were done. Such a little while 
ago it seemed since she had been looking for- 
ward to it, and now it was done. Oh, what 
did it all mean, the love, the yearning, the striv- 
ing, that it should end in such bitter loss; how 
had they made such a failure of marriage — - 
marriage, that could have been so beautiful t 
Why was it that that last moment with Norton 
had been the first to show it to her ? 

In the utter solitude she thought and 
thought, with strained brow, with hands tightly 
[25a] 


Wings 


clasped. She searched her soul as if it were the 
judgment day. Death held up the lamp by 
which she saw her husband at last clearly — all 
that he was, all that he might have been if she 
had not used her higher thought to build up a 
barrier between them. The sense of his 
maimed life, the loss of all the joy and trust 
there might have been, pierced her to the heart. 
His nature, lower than hers, had yet held in it 
the capacity to be more than hers — had seen 
more clearly, and had been more generous. 
Could it be that, after all, she who had loved so 
much had not loved enough? 

Oh, what was it that was expected of love; 
to desire utterly the good of the best beloved, 
the development along lines where one cannot 
follow, on which one has no claim, which 
touch no answering chord of self — no one poor 
human being can love perfectly, as perfectly as 
that! If one were only God — 

But there was God. 

Milly raised her head, and the moonlight fell 
on her face. 

‘‘Oh, far beyond this poor horizon’s bound” 
shone the answer to all her thought. The capa- 
bility of endless growth, the mating of two 
souls beyond the spheres and through all ages 
was the message of high emprise that called 
her like the voice of a star. With the heart of 
love, with the wings of immortality came the 
[259] 


Little Stories of Married Life 


third revelation, reaching to infinite depths and 
heights, revealing the ineffable space where self 
is lost in the divine. The secret of life and 
death, of loss and reprisal, of the seen and the 
unseen, of thou and I, was there in the oneness 
of all that our mortal sense divides. Oh, the 
great, free, beautiful vision! 

In the long silence — in the blowing of the 
night wind — when the clouds veiled the moon 
— spirit to spirit she stood with her beloved at 
last, as never, oh, never before upon this earth, 
and repeated aloud once more the words of 
eternal might : 

‘‘The Lord watch between thee and me — 
between thee and me — when we are parted the 
one from the other/' 


The End 


[260] 




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